Righting the Ship Where Google Went Wrong
with tips to break free
"They were so preoccupied by if they could, they never stopped to ask if they should.”
From the wise Dr. Allen in Jurassic Park: "The world has just changed so radically, and we’re all trying to catch up.... Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by sixty-five million years of evolution, have just been suddenly...thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?”
Just because John Hammond could bring back dinosaurs, the question was if it made sense for human flourishing.
Twenty-six years ago, Google didn’t exist. The internet was in its infancy, a place mysterious and inscrutable to most, full of possibility to some. Those of us old enough to remember know we lived differently then – in the real world rather than through a screen. Pornography was accessible in the back room of the shadier video rental shops or behind plastic screens at the convenience store. Today, it’s a click away (or less, given our dependence on social media and search only to happy to algorithmically suggest it to us), and studies show most children first encounter it between the ages of just nine and thirteen.
Twenty-six years ago, we had the reasonable expectation of privacy. Our thoughts, feelings, desires were our own to be shared as we chose, not to be bundled and distributed to the highest bidder.
Just because Google could launch the world’s information engine littered with pornography for our kids to find, filled with addictive behaviors and ads for monetary gain - doesn't mean they should.
Does regaining privacy and putting pornography back in its rightful place go together? Yes. This combination is the backbone of a search engine that wants to advance human flourishing more than it wants to manipulate humans’ base desires and feelings for profit.
The reality that we, the consumers, aren’t being served well in this setup wasn’t lost on Google back in 2000.
Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page noted in a white paper they penned, “advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.”
Freespoke is serving the needs of consumers through a search engine that provides both sides in every search result, with privacy and without pornography.
Here’s how to understand Freespoke’s protections:
Privacy
When you search in Freespoke, we protect your information from being used to manipulate what you see. In Google, your search results are filled with ads. In Freespoke, no one knows what you’re searching. Your searches are always completely anonymous.
So, if you want to start taking away some of the manipulative power from Google, search instead with Freespoke. We do not sell your search data to make money, so you can feel safe that anything you’re searching within Freespoke is protecting your privacy.
Important to note, however, is that after you complete your search and click on news articles or product websites, they track you once you arrive at their site. This tracking is how the internet currently functions – it's how content publishers make money.
Most trackers operate subtly, leveraging the advertising infrastructure used by a majority of websites. On your desktop, you can easily and freely protect yourself simply by installing an ad blocker in your browser. Freespoke recommends a couple options:
When it comes to your phone, Freespoke built an ad blocker into the Freespoke app on iOS and Android. This is a premium feature. So, if you have Freespoke Premium, you’ll be protected as you search and browse from your phone.
Many people prefer to take the next step as well, by adding a VPN. VPNs disguise your traffic, making it more difficult for websites to know who you really are. Many of them also include comprehensive tracker blocking as well.
Keep in mind that nothing comes without a tradeoff. VPNs themselves can see what you do online. If you use a VPN, make sure to choose one that is highly rated and trustworthy, VPNs can also slow down your browsing, and some sites may block known VPN IP addresses.
If you aren’t paying for premium in Freespoke mobile app, you will see ads in the newsfeed and other non-search features in Freespoke, as well as in the articles and sites you click on. In order to keep the lights on as we build a better searching future – we monetize Freespoke through ads if you aren’t paying for premium. Or through an ad-free experience if you are paying for premium.
If ads are present, your privacy will be less protected, because there is no way for us to turn off all the trackers in the advertising infrastructure. So without a premium account, you’re not fully protected from advertisers getting your data. Only a premium subscription will get you that.
We draw a line when it comes to search, whether you have a premium subscription or not. We treat your search activity as PII (personally-identifiable information). This means we have special protections in place to prevent sharing any search data with untrusted third parties, and necessary information is shared only in a way that cannot be linked back to your identity.
When you leave Freespoke.com (clicking on a result), you may be tracked by those other websites. You can further maximize your privacy protections by using a trusted VPN, and by using an ad blocker, such as the mobile ad blocker included in your Freespoke Premium subscription.
To recap: Freespoke protects and respects your privacy wherever we can. Your search activity on Freespoke is private. Our app never collects any information about your browsing activity. If you subscribe to Freespoke Premium, your privacy is enhanced by the ad blocker included in our app. Please note, however, that Freespoke cannot prevent all tracking outside of Freespoke.com. When you leave our site, other websites can track you.
Porn Free
Similar to reinstating your right to privacy, Freespoke is committed to protecting children’s innocence online and combating online sex trafficking. Did you know that online pornography is the 3rd most common form of sex-trafficking? Meaning much of what is seen in online pornography isn’t consensual, especially when you layer on the data point from Pepperdine Law Review that 1 out of 5 pornographic images is of a child. We didn’t know any of this until we started building a search engine, and now we’re doing something about it.
In Freespoke, you won’t stumble across pornography because we block pornographic search results from appearing in our search engine results.
By making Freespoke your default search engine on your laptop or desktop, and your default browser through our mobile app, you're taking that power away from traffickers and taking a step to protect children’s innocence online.
However, just as with our guide to privacy, search is only one piece of the puzzle. To protect your family across the rest of the internet, additional tools are needed. By putting family focused filters on at the DNS (domain name system) level, you block sites from being accessible in any browser across your protected devices.
Here is an explanation of how it works, including steps to take to add this protection (for free) on your devices (https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-1-1-1-1-for-families/) or at your router-level (https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/setup/router/)
Let’s recap:
To make sure your privacy is fully protected online:
Make Freespoke your default search engine
Add a VPN and free Ad Blocker for a private, ad-free experience on desktop
Pay for Freespoke premium to get the ad-free experience on mobile
To protect children’s innocence online and fight against sex-trafficking:
Make Freespoke your default search engine
Change your router or device level DNS provider to Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.3
And breathe a deep sigh of relief. We aren’t fighting velociraptors, but these online monsters are just as scary – let's keep them at bay together.
Download the free Freespoke app.
And make Freespoke your default search engine on your computer: this link in Firefox // this link in Chrome or Brave and others.
Then sign-up for premium to support the movement toward a better future!
Sources on sex trafficking:
According to cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, pornography was the 3rd-most common form of sex trafficking, after escort services and elicit massage businesses
In 2023, the National Center on Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline received 36.2 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation online. Those reports contained more than 105 million images, videos and other files. They also saw an explosion in reports of online enticement, an increase of more than 300% between 2021 – 2023.
A 2020 NYTimes exposé Children of Pornhub states: “Google supports the business model of companies that thrive on child molestation.”