Today Ask.com lived up to its July promise by releasing AskEraser, a service which will provide greater user privacy.  It allows users to make their future searches private by deleting information from their servers within a matter of hours.

Major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft typically keep track of search terms typed by users and link them to a computer’s Internet address, and sometimes to the user.  Prompted by Ask.com earlier this year, Google and Microsoft announced a policy to erase user associated data to queries after 18 months, Yahoo’s is 13 months.  While this is fine and dandy it does not address how this information is used during the retention period.

Ask.com is answering that question by allowing their users to opt for a retention period of hours vice months.  When activated, AskEraser will delete all future search queries and associated cookie information from Ask.com servers, including IP address, User ID, Session ID, and the complete text of their queries.  The service is activated right off their main page in an intuitive easy to use interface.  Once activated it replaces your previous cookies with one for AskEraser which stays active for 24 months.

Ask.com has worked hard to increase their market share of the search domain this year.  This is another initiative including launching their ad network, redesigning their homepage, implementing Ask3d, and their less than stellar “algorithm” commercials.  For October Comscore reports that Ask.com held 4.7% of U.S. searches, up from 4.4% in July.

I do not think AskEraser will help increase their standing but can only hope that they can continue their success in setting privacy standards.  If the actions taken by Google and other engines in June repeat then we may see similiar services released soon.  I’m not holding my breath.