I understand I could have better communicated my message and thanks for bringing it up.
My point is that none of "us" require anonymity in normal circumstances of using a search engine. But we all absolutely require our privacy respected (and many people still conflate privacy with anonymity).
Kagi is 100% privacy respecting by default, and examples I gave illustrate not only that, but that certain (almost total) level of anonymity can be obtained by Kagi too (because searches are not logged, so they can not be logged with an identity). In a paid service environment where you need to authenticate the user, help them restore their account etc, it is very difficult, I dare say impossible, to achieve total anonymity guarantee from a technical standpoint and I want to be transparent about it.
I think a better sort of guarantee is exactly the one that I gave - our business model does not incentivize and sort of privacy invasive behavior.
> The commitment needs to be "we will never, never, never, ever, do anything like this"
Perhaps you have not read our privacy policy, but this is exactly what is says there, and I took it for granted. This is probably my mistake and I should have assumed that people submitting inquiry will not have read it.
In my mind "there is no need for us to do it" is a much more powerful driving force than simply stating we won't. Stating something is easy but not substantial as witnessed by many big tech companies. The reality is that their business model forces them to twist reality away from privacy statements like those. Our business model does exactly the opposite, and has a positive feedback loop reinforcement in relation with the customer (we cheat you -> you take your wallet elsewhere).
Rereading this very answer I have a feeling it will not be the most satisfying again, so I hope that with your help, we can come to an answer that will satisfy your inquiry.