And what's a real shame is that they could still make money off of private users. It's possible to offer targeted ads based on unencrypted metadata and hashed keywords (c.f. some of the interested work GNUnet has done on search); they could also offer 100% private (client-side encrypted) accounts for an upcharge. Google's revenue per user is reputed to be roughly $10 per annum; I'd be willing to pay $50/year for client-side encrypted everything.
Yes, it'd cost money to maintain that infrastructure, but I bet there are enough people who'd want to do it, and would be willing to pay enough to do it, that it'd be profitable.
wtbob|11 years ago
Yes, it'd cost money to maintain that infrastructure, but I bet there are enough people who'd want to do it, and would be willing to pay enough to do it, that it'd be profitable.
Retric|11 years ago
However, I suspect actual users is probably closer to 2 billion than 7 billion. ex: ~1.17 billion people use Google search.
tdkl|11 years ago
abraham|11 years ago
They were never promised. It was internal dev tools that accidentally got released.