If Ask.com Takes a Swipe at Google in the Woods…

There's nothing more depressing than watching a bear cub take a swipe at a gigantic, planet-eating corporation, but that's exactly what we saw today.

Ask.com took to its blog today with an open missive titled "Ask.com Makes More Moves on Privacy." In the post, Ask.com references the letter sent to Google from 14 privacy watchdog groups including the EFF and the ACLU demanding that Google add a link to its privacy policy on their home page to comply with the California Online Privacy Protection Act. Google maintains that adding a link will ruin the pristine nature of their home page.

Now, aside from the fact that hardly anyone goes to the Google home page anyway, preferring the search bar Google conveniently pays for in our browsers, it's hard to imagine that one additional link saying "Privacy Policy" would ruin a design. It's more likely that Google hopes no one pays attention to the unfathomable amount of data it's collecting on our behalf.

If Ask.com was even considered a serious competitor to Google's throne, the post would have made waves. Instead, it looks more like the publicity stunt that it is, with Ask.com waving its hand in the air saying "Pick me! Pick me! We'll do what they ask. We'll even do more."

Ask.com's move didn't lure me back (I liked it better when it was AskJeeves), but it did put a frightening question into my head: if Google is so dominant that they don't even need to obey laws that apply to every other company (COPPA took effect in 2004), what else are they doing or not doing that we aren't even aware of?