Bonum Certa Men Certa

Startpage Shows Sheer Hypocrisy After Selling Out and Betraying Privacy (Corrected)

Startpage's tweet of irony

Startpage's tweet irony



Summary: After more than half a decade of using and advocating Startpage I've come to realise it's a spying operation and Startpage hopes nobody will notice

TECHRIGHTS is now older than 13 years; at no point did the site focus on privacy as a topic to cover, except in Daily Links (or sometimes the privacy violations at the European Patent Office (EPO)). But the more we cover it, the more people come forward with pointers, observations and analyses. So deeper we dive! Because a lot of companies out there turn out to have lied all along about their privacy stance. It's just grotesque.

"I'm finding other privacy-focused companies are being sold/invested in by U.S. companies," one reader told us, alluding to several recent articles of ours. "This points out why it is so important that we ask companies questions about their ownership and data processing. We cannot simply assume that our favorite privacy services remain unchanged...

"Another favorite of mine, Wire, was reportedly sold this summer -- which is strangely curious for reasons I cannot say. I'm looking into it."

"...the more we cover it, the more people come forward with pointers, observations and analyses."And now Startpage has the audacity to (re)post the above from this article: “Why did this Chinese company purchase Grindr when they couldn’t expand it to China or get any Chinese benefit from it? Did they really expect to make money, or are they in this for the data?”

Didn't Startpage do something similar? It went to bed with System1, which is an appalling employer (judging by online reviews by employees) that used to be called something close to what it does: "Brain Juicer."

They rebranded/renamed to the somewhat generic "System1."

One what? What system? How vague...

[Correction: A reader has pointed out that there's "a TOTALLY SEPARATE COMPANY called System 1 Group PLC or something like that -- formerly BrainJuicer. I don't believe it's related to the U.S. System1. System1 is terminology used in marketing, which is why many companies use the term and why there's more than one similar name. Here's more on "types of thinking" that most likely influenced the names of these behavioral ad companies. So System 1 thinking sways us emotionally -- which is why so many companies, marketers, advertisers go for that. They don't want us to think through things logically and take time because it might cause us to make more rational choices -- and perhaps not spend $."]

We believe they're like a 'lesser' Cambridge Analytica and still investigate the matter. They're selling data and -- as we've noted yesterday -- they pretend to be a privacy company. That's the very opposite of what they are, so it's a good decoy.

"We believe they're like a 'lesser' Cambridge Analytica and still investigate the matter."Also interesting, according to that above reader, is the way "that Startpage is asking about reasoning behind another company's investment when it won't answer questions about the System1 investment in Startpage."

Indeed.

On goes the reader: "What's really strange is how many people seemingly aren't aware of the System1 purchase and the scandal over the mysterious "Privacy One Group Ltd." I see people visiting the @startpagesearch Twitter feed -- people I know who care about privacy and would never use Startpage if they knew Startpage wasn't answering questions about how much was purchased by a pay-per-click company -- retweeting as usual."

The chief/founder of Startpage attempted to recover from our coverage; but all he had to offer was non-denying waffle; nowhere did he refute what we wrote.

Recent Techrights' Posts

EPO Workers Point Out that the EPO is Destroying the Planet Under the Guise of "Hey Hi" (It Also Grants Many Invalid Patents Illegally
On 12 March and 16 June 2025, staff representation met with the administration in the Local Occupational Health, Safety and Ergonomics Committee (LOHSEC) in Munich
How the European Union (EU) Fell Out of Love With Free/Libre Software
Lots of bribery
Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Has Almost Gone Down to Zero, Nearly Totally Extinct in Geminispace, the Few Capsules Still Using It Are Spam/Dead/Stagnant
This represents another decrease for Let's Encrypt; the last decrease was last week
Trying to Silence Techrights Was a Huge Mistake
Peter Thiel attacked a publisher for asserting, correctly, that he was gay. Now everyone knows it.
 
Links 08/09/2025: Tim Crook Disappoints Apple Faithfuls and Zuckerberg Lies (Financial Fraud) for Cheeto King
Links for the day
Turn Off Microsoft's Restricted Boot ("Secure Boot")
We're still running a series on this issue
Social Control Media Sites Have Become Bot Farms (Not Limited to LLMs and Automation)
linkedin.com was nothing but trouble and losses for Microsoft
Deep in Debt With the Magnitude of Losses Quickly Growing, Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Now Uses Broadcom for Vapourware, Pretending It'll Do OK Next Year
At some stage it'll collapse
You Can Tell Microsoft is in Trouble When Its Own Fans and Staff Blast it
"Microsoft sinks billions into chasing artificial intelligence fads to hype up its share price."
Multiple Undersea Cable Cuts and We're Still OK
Microsoft customers experience problems
Lawyers Who Think They Are Online Assassins Don't Deserve a Licence to Operate
they've become a laughing stock in their "sector"
Microsoft Windows Fell to 3.9% "Market Share" in Bahamas
Based on statCounter
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 07, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 07, 2025
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Scanner, Slop, and Chadobear
Links for the day
The UEFI 9/11 is 3 Days Away
Nobody denies that bad things will happen
Google Versus Journalism
Google played a big role in the demise of news sites
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Advertising, Decentralized Archival, and Outsourcing to Bezos
Links for the day
Not Much Left in News Cycles
To be very clear, this does not describe "Linux" anything; it's true in just about every facet of news, except the paid-for fake "journalism" about "hey hi" (sites getting paid explicitly to maintain or rekindle hype)
Throwing Away "Old" Computers (Mozilla and Other Climate Deniers)
Mozilla is not leftist
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VIII - Denial of Service and Selling Us WSL (Windows) Instead of "Risky" (Prone by Breakage by Microsoft) GNU/Linux
Restricted Boot (so-called 'SecureBoot') does not improve security. It is nothing but trouble. It's meant to trouble non-Windows users. In dual-boot setups, SecureBoot is a recipe for disaster because Microsoft keeps erasing or tampering with the boot sector, to paraphrase an associate
Slop is Extremely Rare in Geminispace, Slop Images Are Unheard Of (Despite Images Being Supported)
As long as Geminispace grows in terms of domains it's safe to predict the protocol will still be used in 2029 and hence Geminispace will turn 10
Links 07/09/2025: Robodebt Class Action, Fines, and Copyright Settlement
Links for the day
Links 07/09/2025: Yle Impersonated in Social Control Media, Boat-Attacking Orcas, Midjourney Sued Again
Links for the day
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal, and the Serial Slopper
Google won't tackle the issue because Google participates not only in relaying slop but also in generating lots of it
Links 07/09/2025: Google Fines in EU and "Your Internet Access Is at Risk"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Little Brother and Corporate Theatre
Links for the day
Links 07/09/2025: More Harms of Slop and Anthropic's Nightmare Scenario (Huge Legal Liabilities for Slop)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 06, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 06, 2025
Microsoft Sites Now Talking About September's Mass Layoffs at Microsoft
It's noteworthy that even Microsoft's MSN now covers the latest revelations about mass layoffs
Gemini Links 06/09/2025: SpellBinding Moving and "The Cloud" Ridiculed
Links for the day
Slopwatch: On "the Apology Industry", Chatbots (Punchbag for Customers), and Fake Articles About "Linux"
"news reporting priorities changed"
Links 06/09/2025: "Covid Incidence on the Rise" and Many Attacks on the Press Worldwide
Links for the day
The Register Bill
The Register MS - putting the "MS" in your centre of the universe
Analogies for "Memory Safety" in Rust
Don't worry, it's Rust! It can do anything!
Nobody Denies That SecureBoot Will Cause Problems After September 11
Not even Microsoft
Gemini Links 06/09/2025: Infinite Scrolling and Posting from Emacs
Links for the day
Links 06/09/2025: GitHub Meltdown Over Slop, "U.S. Jury Says Google Should Pay $425 Million in Privacy Lawsuit"
Links for the day
Despite Its Severe Financial Problems Gnome Foundation Inc Paid Rosanna Yuen Over 100,000 Dollars Last Year
maybe relocation should be considered
The "Left" and the Right"
It poisons everything
Mozilla and Rust Are Not Leftists
they're part of the mass consumerism machine
Disposable to Microsoft
There is an extensive set of people who got used by Microsoft, only to be thrown away a month later or a year later or a decade later
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VII - This Coming Week Many PCs Will Refuse to Boot "Linux" (Because of Microsoft's Expired Certificate)
The real solution is, disable "secure boot" or "SecureBoot" while it's still possible. [...] Just like submarine patents, a lot of this problem was "hibernating" for a while
The Thing Nobody in Red Hat Wants to Talk About Openly
There is a real sentiment or worry among Red Hatters, Europeans and Americans in particulars (because of higher salary expectations)
Slopwatch: Small Parade of Fake News About "Linux" and Scams Borrowing the Name (or Word) "Linux"
In practice, LLMs are a risk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 05, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 05, 2025