# Another web browser using Google as their search, possible? Illegal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 7, 2012, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391 "2012-06-07T15:35:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/1 "2012-06-07T15:35:54Z")
I was reading [this story](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/06/nicole_okrzesik_juliana_mensch_could_cops_use_google_to_prevent_murder_.2.html) on [Slate.com](http://Slate.com) about the potential of law enforcement using people’s Google search to pre-empt crimes. Specifically, the woman in question searched for things like “ways to kill someone in their sleep” and “how to poison someone” I’m no technie, but I seem to recall there were other, more secure search engines out there that doesn’t monitor or save search information by its users. But even if those exist, they would suffer from the lack of Google’s search algorithms. However, could a website take inputted search queries from its users, not keep any user records or data, search Google itself, spit back the results, and get all the benefits of a Google search without the potential privacy invasion? Does that sound illegal if they are piggybacking on Google’s search engine? What if they don’t identify that they’re using Google, but just use it and report the search results? There’s no law against another search engine using Google, right? ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/2 "2012-06-07T16:04:30Z")
The story of [Scroogle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scroogle) is of interest to you. It doesn’t look like Google took any legal action against them, but it closed for other reasons. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/3 "2012-06-07T16:27:54Z")
You might want to report the thread for a title change: you are talking about another web search provider, not web browser. ---
**Author:** ![Avumede](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/avumede/32/7235_2.png) [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/4 "2012-06-08T01:50:12Z")
No, that’s not possible without a contract with Google. It probably is against the terms of service, so it’s not legal. And technically, it’s easy for Google to block. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/5 "2012-06-08T02:03:22Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > I was reading [this story](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/06/nicole_okrzesik_juliana_mensch_could_cops_use_google_to_prevent_murder_.2.html) on [Slate.com](http://Slate.com) about the potential of law enforcement using people’s Google search to pre-empt crimes. Specifically, the woman in question searched for things like “ways to kill someone in their sleep” and “how to poison someone” > > I’m no technie, but I seem to recall there were other, more secure search engines out there that doesn’t monitor or save search information by its users. But even if those exist, they would suffer from the lack of Google’s search algorithms. However, could a website take inputted search queries from its users, not keep any user records or data, search Google itself, spit back the results, and get all the benefits of a Google search without the potential privacy invasion? Does that sound illegal if they are piggybacking on Google’s search engine? What if they don’t identify that they’re using Google, but just use it and report the search results? There’s no law against another search engine using Google, right? Google claimed that Bing was doing just that [http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-02/tech/google.bing.sting\_1\_experian-hitwise-google-engineers-search-engine?\_s=PM:TECH](http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-02/tech/google.bing.sting_1_experian-hitwise-google-engineers-search-engine?_s=PM:TECH) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/6 "2012-06-08T02:46:40Z")
> [@Avumede](#): > > No, that’s not possible without a contract with Google. It probably is against the terms of service, so it’s not legal. And technically, it’s easy for Google to block. Well, Scroogle was doing it, quite publicly, for about 9 years, and although they have now been closed down, perhaps in part thanks to Google blocking them (although Google apparently denies deliberately doing so: see **Baron Greenback** ’s link), no legal action was ever taken. ---
**Author:** ![RandomLetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@RandomLetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandomLetters)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/7 "2012-06-08T10:11:27Z")
Search engines that use google? [Let me Google that for you.](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=search+engines+that+use+google) There is also Blackle, which puts a dark interface on Google’s web search. ---
**Author:** ![Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunzio_Tavulari)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/8 "2012-06-08T11:35:54Z")
[Startpage](https://us2.startpage.com/) is “enhanced” by Google. It’s an evolution of ixquick which was very private but not very effective. This new variation is much better. It doesn’t return as many results but that may be because it picks up ewer sponsored and re-directed sites. Google is heavily ad based and there are thousands of people working on methods for their site to appear in more Google results. There’s also [GoDuckGo](http://duckduckgo.com/) which has more privacy than Google. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/9 "2012-06-08T11:55:37Z")
> [@Avumede](#): > > No, that’s not possible without a contract with Google. It probably is against the terms of service, so it’s not legal. And technically, it’s easy for Google to block. I am not following this. If I do a Google search am I somehow automatically bound to some terms of service even though I have not created a relationship with Google? That doesn’t make sense to me. And violating terms of service for a commercial agreement is not “not legal” as in “criminal” though it is subject to civil law but more likely just to result in termination of the agreement. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/10 "2012-06-08T13:32:04Z")
> [@RandomLetters](#): > > Search engines that use google? [Let me Google that for you.](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=search+engines+that+use+google) Ha, ha, such an original way to be snarky. :rolleyes: It would be even better if the results actually addressed the OP’s question. Did you even bother to look at them? ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/11 "2012-06-08T21:25:26Z")
Sounds like a proxy server… ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/12 "2012-06-09T01:35:32Z")
At least one search engine I once looked at is now just another gate to Google, although it doesn’t quite admit it. I once knew the founders and they would have been friends of the founders of Google since they were all grad students at Standford. They started this search engine, Cuil, as an alternative of Google, but I guess it failed. The portal still exists, though but it is Google all the way now. Presumably with Google’s knowledge and permission since of the founders of Cuil (possibly both) now works for Google. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/13 "2012-06-09T13:16:37Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Ha, ha, such an original way to be snarky. :rolleyes: > > It would be even better if the results actually addressed the OP’s question. Did you even bother to look at them? I think the implication was that Let Me Google That For You is actually an _example_ of a site doing that. Except it literally redirects you to actual [google.com](http://google.com) results so it’s not really an example. It’s also possible **RandomLetters** wasn’t trying to be that clever… ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/14 "2012-06-09T14:18:01Z")
> [@](#): > > However, could a website take inputted search queries from its users, not keep any user records or data, search Google itself, spit back the results, and get all the benefits of a Google search without the potential privacy invasion? [www.startpage.com](http://www.startpage.com) has already been mentioned and was created for that exact purpose. I keep wondering though if they are brazenly screwing Google or whether there is some kind of business relationship. You could also take a look at [www.dogpile.com](http://www.dogpile.com) which is a metasearch engine. ---
**Author:** ![Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunzio_Tavulari)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/15 "2012-06-09T15:14:57Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > I keep wondering though if they are brazenly screwing Google or whether there is some kind of business relationship. I think it’s a business relationship. That’s an official Google logo and it has a prominent position next to the input area. I tried to use the precursor IxQuick many times and it returned few results, so the Google hookup is welcome. In the beginning, Google had a company motto of “Don’t be evil”. I think they’re sincere in that belief but recognize that they stepped over that line long ago when they found out they could make hellacious money. My interpretation of their presence on Startpage is that they atoning for their sins in a very small way (and making money at it). ---
**Author:** ![Disheavel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@Disheavel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disheavel)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/16 "2012-06-09T15:33:58Z")
> [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](#): > > There’s also [GoDuckGo](http://duckduckgo.com/) which has more privacy than Google. I second this. We mandate using DuckDuckGo instead of Google for all things work related due to the higher security/privacy/nontracking. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-web-browser-using-google-as-their-search-possible-illegal/624391/17 "2012-06-09T16:40:52Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > I think the implication was that Let Me Google That For You is actually an _example_ of a site doing that. Except it literally redirects you to actual [google.com](http://google.com) results so it’s not really an example. > > It’s also possible **RandomLetters** wasn’t trying to be that clever… As LMGTFY takes yo to a real Google results page, all your identifying data, which was waht the OP was concerned about, will be available to Google, just as if you had searched there normally. As you say, it is not really an example.