The world needs more search engines

For the current Cliqz Browser (1.30.1) when I type "pythux" in the URL bar the request looks like this:

GET /api/v2/results?nrh=1&q=pythuxs=UTlnJzAh4ULkORaiZgLPO6LW9LOWZZoO&n=5&qc=0&lang=en&locale=en-US&platform=0&o=%5B%5B%22custom-search%22%5D%5D&country=de&adult=0&loc_pref=ask&count=10&suggest=0

HTTP/1.1

Host: api.cliqz.com

1. I saw UTlnJzAh4ULkORaiZgLPO6LW9LOWZZoO in other requests too, but not all of them. Can you explain what this parameter is good for and which information it encodes?

2. Can you tell if it is possible to disable auto-suggest (or Quick Search how it seems to be called in your terms)? If it is possible then how do I do it? I couldn't find it in the UI.

3. Can you specify what the exact legal relationship between Cliqz GmbH and FoxyProxy LLC is and if there is any shared ownership or if there are any common parent companies?

4. As you can see above the requests go directly to api.cliqz.com. While the terms go into great length to explain that information is routed via a third party owned proxy the information we are talking about here is exempt from that. I quote the relevant passages here:

> This channel collects signals about WHAT you search and where you land. That is why we do not collect any personal identifier here, which makes it impossible to associate searches with users. Moreover, all query entries and clicks on website suggestions are evaluated only as a single event, disentangling these signals from everything else. Thus, we are neither able to combine data from multiple entries or multiple clicks on website suggestions, nor to link this information with personal information like your email address or an IP address, either.

> Query logging data is used to further improve the Cliqz backend. More specifically:

> To be able to suggest websites in real-time while you are typing into Cliqz’ combined browser-and-search-bar, Cliqz sends your keystrokes to our servers. With every new keystroke, our backend scans our index and predicts the most relevant results for your search query.

> “Relevant” to that regard is (very simplified) defined by the frequency a given website is clicked on for a given query. In other words, Cliqz predicts the most probable site you will navigate to, based on the (partial) query that you type. In order to further improve this mechanism of relevancy, Cliqz logs the clicks in its drop down menu and the respective queries.

I wish the terms were more clear about the fact that crucial information is indeed sent directly to Cliqz and is not sent via the FoxyProxy route.

Well in the given example the user asks a question "who was the actor that..." and Google gives them the answer. This is really hard to achieve by accident no matter how much traffic you get. It requires NLP machinery to answer a question, it's not a matching problem but an understanding problem.

There are at least three kinds of queries that a search engine has to handle. Requests for websites e.g. "Facebook". Traditional keyword searches across the web e.g. "Twitter ban political ads", and questions "Who was the guy who voiced bender?".

Anti-SEO is my first guess, that and tweaking for fears of regulation or bad non-grown-up PR...

Google's algo changes since about panda have been burying good web sites and content while bringing quicker answers and 'sanitized' aka semi-censored results to the top.

Some of this is over reaction to SEO and trying to out do the spammers - but the collateral damage to the results and thus the end users who believe that google brings the truth is hard to calculate.

Combine that with regulation like dmca, right to be forgotten and others.. results are even more censored, and the general population does not know what they are not seeing, as they still trust google to be bringing the truth.

worry about bad PR from various factions - tweak the algorithms.. and you can say for sure that the results the more adolescent google brought a decade ago were often more of what people were looking for.. and the results today are often like cheap irradiated / sanitized snacks, not the full enchilada that was once a G search away.

Much of this started happening when whats his name became that adult in the room and started putting the finger on the scale to change what millions could find, it's gotten more and more censored every update since then, and less transparent about that.

in my biased opinion.. your searches and the results will vary. I still use other engines for different things, and I feel strongly that we need more search engines. Anyone who wants to create a better adult engine, let me know.

You guys are polishing the steam engine, while we need some real progress. Typing a search query isn't much better than typing a SQL query. This should be the last resort thing.

We need a service that would organize the information for us. Instead of us telling the service what we want to see, the service should tell us what's worth attention. Some people care about NFL, so they would be given the most valuable news about NFL. Others care about superconductors, so the service presents them a daily summary of most important advances there.

I know it is, but other search engines seem to be as well.