What’s behind the trend towards private search engines?

In the last two or three years, the search industry has seen a number of new engines that focus specifically on private search. Is this just a passing fad, or is it indicative of an increasing trend towards secure, private search? And if so, what does it mean for more mainstream search engines like the all-seeing Google?

StartPage, Ixquick Passed 4 Million Daily Searches On Monday

StartPage and Ixquick, sister search engines that offer private searching, announced that they surpassed four million daily direct searches on Monday. The announcement comes about three weeks after the parent company announced that they reached three m…