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Daily Archives: November 9, 2021

New search engine – You.com – promises privacy

A new search engine, You.com – is now in beta: FAQ – “You.com never sells your data to advertisers or follows you around the internet. You.com gives you the option to choose between a customized search experience or an entirely private one. Our private mode offers the most private search experience of any search engine. In private mode, You.com never stores your queries, preferences or locations. That also means that localized queries (such as “best restaurants near me”) won’t work. In private mode, we only save whether the service is used at all, in order to prevent attacks and misuses of our servers. In private mode, while we do have to send anonymized query data to Microsoft, Yelp, weather services, and other apps, these queries come from the You.com IP address, so these partners won’t know who the query originated from. Even in standard mode, we strive to only store the minimal data to make your experience better…”

  • Results appear in tiled format with abstracted references, Web results, quick facts, scholarly papers, videos, news, maps, and social media. This site is visually horizontal in presentation of search results, rather than a vertical list which is the standard for most search engines. Give it a try. I located results for searches that did not appear using other search engines. The layout is a bit confusing, but can be visually appealing. Some web, image, video, or news results are powered by  Microsoft. When joining the Beta, username and password accounts can be created.
  • See also Fast Company – Try this new Google alternative for a radically different way to search

Eagles, Beavers, Sea Turtles: Why N.Y.C. Is Humming With Wildlifere

The New York Times: “…New York City is experiencing a surprising return of native wildlife, in numbers and diversity remarkable even to local ecologists and parks officials. “You are seeing miraculous occurrences of wildlife right in the middle of the city,” Mr. Benepe said. It would be easy to surmise that nature blossomed and the… Continue Reading

Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology

“Even in a polarized era, deep divisions in both partisan coalitions. Partisan polarization remains the dominant, seemingly unalterable condition of American politics. Republicans and Democrats agree on very little – and when they do, it often is in the shared belief that they have little in common. Yet the gulf that separates Republicans and Democrats… Continue Reading

Powell’s Books Survived Amazon. Can It Reinvent Itself After the Pandemic?

The New York Times: ” As much as any city, Portland, Ore., has been through hell. Its landmark store, Powell’s Books, must finally build a viable online business while recapturing its downtown success…A quirky, old-school enterprise, Powell’s has retained its traditional aura in the digital era, while standing as a hero in a now-familiar tale… Continue Reading

Facebook allows stolen content to flourish its researchers warned

WSJ [paywall – this link may be free]: “Facebook has allowed plagiarized and recycled content to flourish on its platform despite having policies against it, the tech giant’s researchers warned in internal memos. About 40% of the traffic to Facebook pages at one point in 2018 went to pages that stole or repurposed most of… Continue Reading

OSC Issues Hatch Act Report Documenting Violations by 13 Senior Trump Administration Officials, Including at the 2020 Republican National Conventio

“The U.S. Office of Special Counsel November 9, 2021 issued a report outlining the investigative findings of its career Hatch Act Unit staff in response to Hatch Act complaints filed with OSC regarding senior Trump administration officials’ participation in the 2020 Republican National Convention (RNC) and their political activities leading up to the presidential election.… Continue Reading

ABA – Law School Student Debt

The Upshot—and Solutions to—Crushing Law Student Debt, ABA (Nov. 8, 2021) One-hour webcast: Student Debt: The Holistic Impact on Today’s Young Lawyer 21-page PDF: ABA & AccessLex Inst., Student Debt: The Holistic Impact on Today’s Young Lawyer: Selected Findings from the American Bar Association (ABA) Young Lawyers Division Student Loan Survey (2021) [all via Mary… Continue Reading

UVA Law Librarian Sues DOJ to Force Release of List of Corporate Crime Settlements

Corporate Crime Reporter – The Justice Department maintains a comprehensive list of corporate crime settlements. The Trump Justice Department refused to make the list public. And now the Biden Justice Department is refusing to release the list. So last week, Jon Ashley filed a lawsuit to force the Biden Justice Department to release it. Ashley… Continue Reading

Bipartisan bill would force Big Tech to offer algorithm-free feeds, search results

Ars Technica: “A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House of Representatives introduced a bill that would force social media platforms to allow people to use the site without algorithms that filter or prioritize the content that users see. The bill joins a similar act proposed in the Senate, and together, the bills suggest that… Continue Reading