The Web Can't Offer Privacy Guarantees!

Brave has announced that they are about to launch a new search engine that respects privacy. Governments and big tech companies are all trying to take over the world’s information infrastructure. A search engine that offers privacy is likely to get a lot of folks excited.

Brave already has the Brave browser, which is a privacy-oriented web browser. They are planning to acquire their own search engine that will compete with the other browsers on privacy. Brave is planning to acquire Tailcat, a search engine that was developed by Cliqz. Cliqz was trying to compete with Google but it shut down last year.

Brave currently has over 25 million active users and they are hoping they will choose Brave Search as their default searching engine after they’ve tested and tried it. Brave Search promises to respect people’s privacy and not track or profile users.

Brave will not be the only search engine that promises privacy. Duck Duck Go has been around for a while, and it has been gaining traction of late. That’s because web users are becoming more and more concerned about the way their personal information is handled.

People are more comfortable with sites that don’t grab their information when they visit them. Take for instance cookies. Cookie placing should be something a user consents to before the placement is done. Some sites automatically place regular cookies on users’ devices immediately after they land on them. That’s like having a pick-pocket at your store who grabs your visitors’ wallets and copies the information in them.

It is great that people are starting to get concerned about privacy, and the control that governments and big tech companies have over their personal information. Organizations such as Brave are bringing awareness to the issue of privacy and the need to be in control of your personal information.

But is a browser that does not track and profile people the solution? What guarantee do the people who use the search engine have they will not be tracked and profiled?

The Web has Inadequacies

Brave’s browser and search engines will be part of the world wide web.

Have you read my piece on how the web is a public billboard? Read it here.

Let’s first asks ourselves, what exactly is the web?

The web is a part of the internet. That goes without saying.

So, what is the internet?

Before you start crafting some definitions, I’ll ask you to first forget any assumptions that you might have of what the internet is. Forget all those conventional assumptions of what the internet is used for.

The internet used to be called “the information highway”. That name is still appropriate. I’ve repeated that a couple of times in this blog.

The internet was and continues to be a fantastic outdoor public transport system.

As such, the web is a layer of signage or markings that indicate the endpoints of the public transport system that is the internet.

In simple terms, both the internet and the web are parts of an outdoor public transport system.

Where do highways take us? They take us to indoor spaces or buildings that we have built for specific purposes.

Where are the indoor spaces on the internet?

Outdoor spaces are great for some things. We travel, hike, play sports, and do so many other exciting things outdoors. It would be ridiculous to hold a confidential business meeting in an outdoor space though. What do you think happens when we try to do indoor things outdoors? It’s always chaos!

That’s what happening with the internet and the web!

We are holding meetings, doing our banking, and communicating on public highways and billboards.

So, what exactly are Brave’s browser and search engine offering?

They are basically saying, hey you can keep doing your indoor business on these outdoor platforms we’ve built; we promise we won’t look.

Is that real privacy?

The web is simply inadequate to guarantee privacy and security since it is an outdoor space. Only indoor spaces can guarantee privacy.

How do we get real privacy?

To get real privacy, we need to create habitable online buildings where we can confidently hold our meetings and carry out other personal businesses.

The mobile app revolution is a step in the right direction. Mobile apps are governed spaces.

But who governs them? And what benefit do they get?

How we know that a physical indoor space, that is, a building, is habitable?

A physical indoor space is habitable when it allows you to own your property. Property here being information that identifies you.

We mentioned that people are becoming more aware of the need to have privacy. That starts with protecting your personally-identifying information.

The goal of organizations such as Brave and Duck Duck Go is to give people control over the use of information about themselves. That’s great!

The problem is that they are doing it the wrong way. They are banking their solutions on the web. We’ve established that the web has inadequacies that cannot allow real privacy and security.

What’s needed are reliable identities that are owned by the people they identify. We need to toss away the assumption that someone else has to own and control our identities online. We have to stop letting governments, Google, Facebook, control our identities online.

Digital identities that are owned by their users will bring Authenticity to the internet. The fact that people can still use fake identities or masquerade as anyone on the internet is the source of all the chaos that the internet has been experiencing.

A lot of people would assume that reliable identities will eliminate their ability to remain anonymous. Some would even think that reliable identities can be used to erode people’s privacy. That’s caused by the assumption that someone else has to own your identity. We’ve mentioned above that these assumptions need to go.

Reliable digital identities offer accountable anonymity. Personal accountability on the internet has remained elusive. The internet allows people to be completely different people from who they are in the physical world. That’s the main cause of the never-ending cases of cyber-attacks and the lack of privacy.

What we need on the internet is accountable anonymity.