There was a reply to the parent comment (mine), that appears to be removed, but that we believe it still deserves to be addressed.

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REMOVED COMMENT:

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Is data collected by Cliqz Browser and your search engine used in any way to provide the MyOffrz marketing service?
https://myoffrz.com/en/

Edit: according to the privacy policy the browser and the data collected through it is indeed used to deliver targeted ads.

https://cliqz.com/en/privacy-browser

This is the problem, we do not need any more ad companies that care about our privacy. We need browser vendors that are in the primary business of creating browsers, and possibly charging for advanced features.

We need search engines that do not collect our entire browsing history and how we interact with sites on the pretense that its needed to deliver better search results, while their business model actually revolves around using the same data to deliver targeted ads.

Cliqz could very well collect data and use it only to make search better, and release paid search products for businesses and customers, but they chose to make their users the products.

I had doubts about why people were so upset about your company, but now I see it. Cliqz is esentially capitalizing on the growing privacy movement to market itself, uses subpar technical solutions to ensure data privacy (routing sensitive data through FoxyProxy), and in the end delivers the same old service: our data is harvested, and we are delivered targeted ads.

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REPLY:

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You're cherry-picking and putting things out of context:

> "the data collected is used to deliver targeted ads"

That's not said like this anywhere [e.g. in the linked privacy policy], because it would be false. We do targeted ads, but the targeting is done on the >>client<<, which is the only place that has your history information. It's not possible to do targeting outside the browser itself, because, unlike the rest, we do not have this information.

> you collect browser history

Also incorrect. We collect URLs, but on isolation, we never have the full history. In the article we discussed at length why this is dangerous, of course, we would not do the same.

> Uses subpar technical solutions to ensure data privacy (routing sensitive data through FoxyProxy)

There is a nice short reply here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21696963, but just in case please have a look at the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.07927.

> Cliqz could very well collect data and use it only to make search better, and release paid search products for businesses and customers, but they chose to make their users the products.

Everything we do is privacy preserving, the business model is no exception. We've been experimenting with paid products too (see: https://https://www.lumenbrowser.com/en/) - but it seems to me that if you had found that, you'd say "Yeah, but you want me to give credentials" - and suggest we live on donations instead. We need to be skeptical, and we thank you for that, but also be constructive and reasonable. Preventing anyone to improve the web, only helps companies that do not care about privacy.

> Cliqz is esentially capitalizing on the growing privacy movement to market itself.

We do not do it for marketing. We started building products with privacy in mind since 2014, back when privacy was even more niche than it is today. (from Day 2: Is data collection evil? [0]

We understand that people whenever the see data collection they assume it's for the worse, and whenever they see ads, double on that. In a way, we are victims of the wrong-doings of people that has come before us. But we are trying to build good products maintaining the privacy of the people. If you don't trust, you can verify, we are transparent on what we send and in how we do it. I you still don't like us, well we cannot please everybody, but please do not accuse us of doing things that we are actively fighting against, unlike many, we do not claim that the world is wrong, we are trying to change it.

[0] https://0x65.dev/blog/2019-12-02/is-data-collection-evil.htm...