In real life, search corporations are profiling your searches.
Changing the way we were dealing with data was very challenging for our tech people to begin with.
Can you tell us a bit more about the AOL case?
Because, the unique numbers glued all individual searches together and exposed some people very quickly.
Nowadays, the big search engines store about 10-15 years of search history.
So how does a search engine work without collecting data from its users?
But it allows us to offer a unique service that truly protects people’s privacy while searching.
3rd party websites are not able to track your individual data because they are tracking us instead.
It’s a bit like VPN, but limited to the results we show you.
Some would argue that targeted ads make search easier and more relevant.
What are your biggest concerns when it comes to personalized searches?
Eli Pariser talked about it in his book"The filter bubble".
It’s not healthy for people to always be connected to what they already know.
What’s brought you to develop StartMail, your email service ?
We knew that many people use emails that are not secured at all.
Sending an email message is like sending a postcard: anyone can see it.
They are beyond the critical mass.
If that is the case, how come StartMail is still in business?
StartMail operates independently and relies on internal funding from StartPage.
Raising public awareness to privacy issues is difficult, because most people dont understand the technology behind it.
We venture to serve as a healthy alternative and stay as transparent as possible.
How do you do that?
We bring privacy to the masses by design.
While maintaining transparency, we dont want to tire people with technical details.
This automatically gives them an optimal starting point.
Those users who are more technical can opt to do things slightly differently for further protection.
Encryption is the answer to email privacy.
What alternatives do you offer your clients and how do you overcome that challenge?
It’s true that PGP encryption is very technical and the details matter a lot.
Our slogan is Email Encryption made easy!
What about sending an encrypted email to someone who hasnt got PGP set up?
We solve that using a Q&A method.
If the recipient doesnt have a public key, they see a Q&A with a secure question.
This opens the usage to the average user who doesn’t understand PGP encryption.
What are the next steps for StartMail?
We recently asked one of the top 3 security experts in the world to review us.
We were happy to hear that he was impressed by our work.
In March 2016 we released a business version of StartMail that allows domain support.
Thats a huge incentive to confirm that your implemented technology is state-of-the-art and protects users well.
We invite people to check us out and create a secure account at StartMail.com.
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