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Reimar

It's a meta search engine so it returns all the results from Google/Bing etc

How do you know what code does a searcx instance really run? Open-source does not guarantee that the same code is actually running on a server somewhere.

And if you run your own isntance your are obviously directly contatcing google/bing so that is not privacy respecting either.

This is only to say that the privacy is mostly a matter of business model, not code or anything else. So the question to ask is does Kagi have any incentive to disrespect your privacy (eg mine/monetize your data). The answer is no because people pay for Kagi with their wallet, not their data.

      Vlad Self-hosting a public instance and running through a VPN?

          Vlad

          So the question to ask is does Kagi have any incentive to disrespect your privacy (eg mine/monetize your data). The answer is no because people pay for Kagi with their wallet, not their data.

          I want to emphasize again that this isn't going to assuage people's privacy concerns. I'll also emphasize that I do believe you, and that Kagi is not currently harvesting or selling anyone's data, and that you have no intention to ever do so. I routinely trust private companies with data because they have a clear business strategy that allows them to make a profit off of actually selling their service and not their users. I do understand the point you're making.

          But the number of cases where a website or service has done a 180 flip on privacy for one reason or another in order to sell out their users is so numerous now as to practically be a cliche. There's a bunch of ways this could happen even if you personally never change your mind. What if someone legally takes over the company out of your control? What if a government forces you to? What if an employee goes rogue? What if you get hacked? What if someone makes an honest mistake and causes data to accidentally be leaked? All of these have happened to other companies.

          Privacy conscious people have learned from experience that the only way to avoid this is to avoid putting trust in companies altogether. And that's what we're asking you to allow us to do.

          The best way, and perhaps the only way, you can ensure that this won't happen is to not have access to that data in the first place, and to do so in a way that is plainly evident to your customers. If you provide a way of creating an anonymous but still paid for account using some method (be it cryptocurrencies or blind signature / zero-knowledge tokens or something else) then we don't need to trust you and take you at your word. There'd be no way for there to be data that could be leaked in the first place. And because search engine data is some of the most sensitive data of all — looking into someone's daily searches can potentially tell you more about them than even their email or financial records — it's that much more important that we be able to know that we're keeping our data under our own control without requiring any trust.

          • Vlad replied to this.
              2 months later

              Hi guys,
              I have the same privacy concerns as those expressed above, also towards crypto.
              Any progress on payment by cash? That would be great.
              Thanks!
              Tom

                Browsing6853 We have been in touch with them but it does look too enticing (15% comission too). Still looking it easiest crypto to usd API.

                    Following up on message above 🙂

                      Update: We have applied for a merchant account with BitPay which seems to have everything we need (apart from support for Monero but most other crypto is supported)

                        Anything about cash payments?

                        • Vlad replied to this.

                          Vlad This probably means it will make it not so useful for anonymity.

                          Because you won't own your wallet, and regulations apply. Even if the regulations are alright now (I haven't looked at them and I don't own any crypto asset), they change all the time, especially after all the current crackdown on bad actors.

                          I still think it's worth to explore digital store. Even if there's a 15% commission, it will either bring you more business and you're then earning more (until the point it gets worth it to setup your own crypro wallet/nodes), or it doesn't bring more business, so you won't lose much money, but still win loyal customers and good PR.

                          I still think the other good/better alternative is to sell physical vouchers. Then payment method matters much less and probably easier to handle than cash.

                            Vlad Cash-by-mail. Usually you indicate how much you want to send in advance, you get an invoice with a postal address and identifier, and then you just put cash in an enveloppe with the identifier. Be good to have at least one address in the US and one somewhere in Europe (which should be do-able if you have some devs based in the EU, as you'd just need a PO Box close-by).

                                Vlad I would recommend against using BitPay. There are a number of reasons why, the biggest one of which being that they require identification of the user's real-life identity during payment. I'd rather just pay via Stripe then, and it doesn't even solve the issue at hand which is the lack of an anonymous payment method. It really just moves the user's trust from one company to another.

                                I support the ideas of vouchers and cash by mail which have been mentioned here. Using something like Paysafecard may be easier to implement and is in my opinion also a good idea. Aside from these I suggest using a cryptocurrency payment method which doesn't require identification or even sign-up through their service to purchase something, although I don't have any specific recommendations.

                                • Vlad replied to this.

                                    Reimar What are your thoughts on Coinbase? ANy other provides you could recommend for accepting crypto directly.

                                        Reimar I also briefly checked paysafecard and it sound like you have to physically buy one, and it does not sell worldwide (checked for Serbia for example).

                                            Vlad If you're okay with having to manually convert the payments back to fiat, I'd recommend using a self-hosted solution like BTCPay because it's absolutely best for privacy. Remember that cryptocurrency is decentralized, so you don't actually need a middle-man to process your payments, although it might a bit be harder to setup than the hosted ones.

                                            Now, I don't actually know that much about the different hosted cryptocurrency payment providers (so take this with a grain of salt), but it doesn't really seem like the community endorses Coinbase. Looking at Bitcoin, I did find a community-made list called Awesome Bitcoin payment processors which covers both hosted and self-hosted. Monero has on their own site a list of payment processors if you want to support that as well. I can't really say anything about the individual payment processors though because I don't have any experience with them - if anyone here is more knowledgeable, please come with your own recommendations.

                                            If you're going with a hosted solution, I'd recommend just checking if they require the user to identify themselves, sign up, or create a wallet through their service before paying, because in that case I'd absolutely not recommend it. Otherwise, I think it's probably good, but check what the community has to say about it first (your search engine's "Forums" lens is great for this)

                                            • Vlad replied to this.

                                                Reimar Thanks for the extensive feedback.

                                                We (Kagi) are and want to be in the business of search, not in the business of managing crypto (which seems to be non-trivial). This is why a hosted solution is desireable as we ideally do not want to touch crypto in the flow (ideally have it settled in USD and transferred to our USD bank account). From what you say it seems that hosted solutions are not 'liked' by the community which brings us back to square one.

                                                I checked BTCPay but it seems we would need to get in the business of managing our crypto wallets (for each crypto we want to accept) and also settling crypto to USD daily somehow(?), then transfering to our bank account every day. This sounds non-trivial and is less than ideal as we have no experience in crypto whatsoever.

                                                From the list you provided I found nowpayments.io which seem to check all boxes and they should have USD settlement in September.

                                                    Vlad I completely understand that you want to focus on search instead of the rather advanced technologies that make up cryptocurrencies. The (privacy-oriented part of) the crypto-community will of course always think more idealistically than practically about how you should use cryptocurrency, so it's hard to live up to their standards. I couldn't immediately find anything wrong about Nowpayments so it's probably a good choice. Thanks for listening to our feedback.

                                                      If crypto is out (or almost), can we then consider cash? It remains the most private, as well as a very easy option. Maybe vouchers, I'm not familiar with that.

                                                      • Vlad replied to this.

                                                        Tom45 Cash requires manual processing and that does not scale.