WND EXCLUSIVE Big Name Search Engines Face Rebellion

‘Snowden effect’ gets consumers moving on privacy issues

 Bob Unruh

There’s a quiet but surging rebellion developing against the major Internet search engines because of the “Snowden effect,” insiders are reporting to WND.

That effect is a newly heightened concern over spying, specifically government spying, that might be targeting everyday citizens.

Snowden, of course, is the former National Security Agency contractor who stole thousands of pages of secret documents and started leaking them to the public. It is because of him that President Obama held a news conference on Friday and announced changes to the NSA spy programs.

It is because of Snowden that multiple lawsuits have been launched against the federal government over the NSA activities, including two cases by attorney Larry Klayman, who has obtained a federal judge’s ruling that the operations are likely unconstitutional.

But the average consumer isn’t pursuing a lawsuit or making federal policy changes.

They are just changing their search engines.

Consumer privacy expert Dr. Katherine Albrecht addresses this trend as spokesperson for private search engines StartPage.com and Ixquick.com.

“Every time Edward Snowden shares a new revelation about government spying, we get an influx of new users,” she said.

There have been recurring surges ever since June when Snowden began leaking details about programs like PRISM.

But what’s notable, she explained, “is the sustained upward trend in the numbers. In 2013 these search engines doubled their traffic, serving up over 1.25 billion searches for the year.”

Currently, the company reports more than five million searches per weekday. Albrecht says they are bracing for record growth in 2014 and don’t expect the trend to end anytime soon.

“It may have taken Internet users a while to make sense of Snowden’s revelations and figure out what to do about them,” she observed, “but now they are clearly responding in huge numbers.”

Read more and watch Albrecht video at http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/big-name-search-engines-face-rebellion/

There’s a quiet but surging rebellion developing against the major Internet search engines because of the “Snowden effect,” insiders are reporting to WND.

That effect is a newly heightened concern over spying, specifically government spying, that might be targeting everyday citizens.
Snowden, of course, is the former National Security Agency contractor who stole thousands of pages of secret documents and started leaking them to the public. It is because of him that President Obama held a news conference on Friday and announced changes to the NSA spy programs.
It is because of Snowden that multiple lawsuits have been launched against the federal government over the NSA activities, including two cases by attorney Larry Klayman, who has obtained a federal judge’s ruling that the operations are likely unconstitutional.
But the average consumer isn’t pursuing a lawsuit or making federal policy changes. They are just changing their search engines.
Consumer privacy expert Dr. Katherine Albrecht addresses this trend as spokesperson for private search engines StartPage.com and Ixquick.com.
“Every time Edward Snowden shares a new revelation about government spying, we get an influx of new users,” said said.
There have been recurring surges ever since June when Snowden began leaking details about programs like PRISM.
But what’s notable, she explained, “is the sustained upward trend in the numbers. In 2013 these search engines doubled their traffic, serving up over 1.25 billion searches for the year.”
Currently, the company reports more than five million searches per weekday. Albrecht says they are bracing for record growth in 2014 and don’t expect the trend to end anytime soon.
“It may have taken Internet users a while to make sense of Snowden’s revelations and figure out what to do about them,” she observed, “but now they are clearly responding in huge numbers.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/big-name-search-engines-face-rebellion/#XG6dQCOiFTQahvOM.99

'Snowden effect' gets consumers moving on privacy issues
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/big-name-search-engines-face-rebellion/#XG6dQCOiFTQahvOM.99