"Will privacy sell? Ask.com is betting it will. The fourth-largest search
engine company will begin a service today called AskEraser, which allows users to
make their searches more private."
   
  Full text at:
   
  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/technology/11ask.html

“It works like a light switch,” said Doug Leeds, senior vice president
for product management at Ask.com. Mr. Leeds said the service would be
a selling point with consumers who were particularly alert about 
protecting their privacy.

But underscoring how difficult it is to completely erase one’s digital
footprints, the information typed by users of AskEraser into Ask.com
will not disappear completely. Ask.com relies on Google to deliver many
of the ads that appear next to its search results. Under an agreement
between the two companies, Ask.com will continue to pass query
information on to Google. Mr. Leeds acknowledged that AskEraser cannot
promise complete anonymity,