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Ask.com will take its research with privacy advocates at the Center for Democracy & Technology into a new product for their search engine.

Ask Readies AskEraser Privacy Controls

The AskEraser product offers a straightforward way of keeping one's search history from being retained by Ask. AskEraser will arrive in the wake of a number of privacy-related events related to search, such as Google's proposed purchase of DoubleClick.

Search information can reveal a lot about an individual, even if that data has been anonymized, as was demonstrated after AOL posted thousands of search records to the Internet. AskEraser will give Ask searchers the option to prevent this retention from taking place.

"Anonymous user data can be very useful to enhance search products for all users, and we’re committed to being open and transparent about how such information is used," Ask CEO Jim Lanzone said in a statement.

"But we also understand that there are some who are interested in new tools that will help protect their privacy further, and we will give them that control on Ask.com."

People will be able to turn on AskEraser, and see their privacy status noted on search result pages as a reminder the service is active.

Once AskEraser debuts by the end of the year in the US and the UK, Ask plans to implement it globally in early 2008. Further, a new data retention standard will be implemented at that time.

Ask plans to disassociate search history from individual's IP addresses or cookies after an 18-month period, as part of that new policy.