Search Engine Privacy

A search query is a statement of what you want to know, typed before you have decided who should know it. Over time, the set of queries is a map of your concerns: your health, your finances, your relationships, your location, and your job.

What the record looks like

A major search engine, used with an account, can associate with you:

• each query, with a timestamp
• your IP address and a coarse location derived from it
• the device, browser, and language settings
• links you click in the results, and the sites you then visit

Used without an account, the log is tied to an IP address instead, which in practice still resolves to a household or an office.

What changing engine actually changes

	Personalised results	Query logging	Model funding
Google with an account	Yes, extensive	Yes, tied to the account	Advertising
Google signed out	Limited	Yes, tied to IP and cookies	Advertising
DuckDuckGo	No personal search profile	Claims not to save queries; Bing supplies some results	Advertising, donations
Brave Search	No personal profile	Search activity not stored on the server in the free product	Subscription and licensing
SearxNG, self-hosted	Only what you configure	Whatever your instance logs — often nothing	Yours
A local index	No	No	Yours

Two structural differences matter more than the policy comparison. The first is whether the engine operates its own index or resells results from another company’s engine, which changes what the second company learns. The second is self-hosting: SearxNG or a local index means the query never leaves your machine, at the cost of result quality and your own maintenance.

Practical steps

1. Use a browser that does not send a search referrer, or clear it. Most sites log the search engine and the query as a Referer header.
2. Turn on Do Not Send My Queries or the equivalent in the search engine you use, if it offers one.
3. Set a search engine that does not require an account.
4. Delete the existing record, and understand that this is partial.
5. Be aware that the network still sees the lookup, unless you use encrypted DNS or Tor.
6. Remember that a query can identify someone else. Searching for a rare medical symptom or a specific address is a disclosure about a person other than you.

Sources

• Google Privacy Policy — the authoritative statement of what is collected, in the company’s own words.
• DuckDuckGo Privacy Policy — including the explanation of what is shared with Microsoft for search results.
• Brave Search — independent index, no stored search history in the free tier; a vendor claim, worth testing rather than trusting.
• de Montjoye et al., Unique in the Crowd — Scientific Reports 3, 2013.