Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how information is collected, used, stored, and shared when you use this web-based search result assessment service (the 'Service').

The Service is an independent evaluation and research platform designed to study and compare the quality of search results produced by third-party search providers. The Service is not a search engine and does not provide search functionality as a consumer product.

1. Data Controller

The Service is currently operated by a private individual based in the European Union.

For the purposes of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the operator acts as the data controller.

Contact for privacy-related matters is provided at the end of this policy.

2. Scope and Purpose of the Service

The Service allows users to:

• submit a search query,
• view search results returned by two randomly selected third-party search providers,
• indicate which result set they consider higher quality.

User evaluations are aggregated and used for research, statistical analysis, and benchmarking of search result quality.

The Service:

• does not identify the search providers to users at evaluation time,
• does not recommend or endorse any provider,
• does not make claims about factual correctness or suitability for any specific use case.

3. Information Collected

3.1 Information You Provide

• Search queries entered into the Service
• Comparative evaluations (e.g. selecting Result A or Result B)

No user accounts are required.

3.2 Information Collected Automatically

To operate and secure the Service, limited technical information may be collected:

• IP address (stored temporarily or in truncated form)
• Browser type and version
• Operating system
• Timestamp of requests
• Anonymous session identifiers (cookies or local storage)

The Service does not intentionally collect names, email addresses, phone numbers, or precise location data.

4. Nature of Search Queries

Search queries may, depending on their content, constitute personal data under GDPR.

The Service:

• does not attempt to identify individuals from queries,
• does not associate queries with real-world identities,
• does not enrich queries with external personal data.

Queries are processed solely for evaluation, research, and statistical purposes.

5. How Information Is Used

• operate and maintain the Service,
• compare and assess search result quality,
• analyze interactions with displayed search results (such as link clicks) to assess result quality,
• generate aggregated metrics and rankings,
• improve evaluation methodologies,
• detect abuse and ensure system integrity.

6. Research and Commercial Use

Data collected by the Service may be used for:

• internal research,
• academic research,
• commercial research and benchmarking.

Anonymized and aggregated datasets may be shared with third parties or licensed or sold to organizations, including search engine providers.

No externally shared dataset is intended to allow identification of individual users.

7. Anonymization and Aggregation

Before external use or sharing:

• direct identifiers are removed or irreversibly transformed,
• evaluations and queries are aggregated,
• reasonable technical and organizational measures are applied to reduce re-identification risk.

Once data has been aggregated or anonymized, it may no longer be technically possible to remove individual contributions.

8. Third-Party Search Providers

Search queries are forwarded to third-party search providers solely to retrieve result sets for comparison.

These providers process queries according to their own privacy policies and terms. The Service does not control their data practices.

Users are encouraged not to submit personal or sensitive information in queries.

9. Public Rankings and Leaderboards

The Service publishes aggregate rankings and scores of search providers based on user evaluations.

These rankings:

• are statistical in nature,
• reflect aggregated user preferences,
• do not represent factual accuracy or completeness,
• do not include individual queries or user-level data.

10. Cookies and Local Storage

The Service uses only essential cookies or local storage:

• to maintain session state,
• to prevent abuse.

No advertising, tracking, or cross-site profiling cookies are used.

11. Analytics and Usage Measurement

The Service uses a privacy-friendly analytics tool (GoatCounter) to measure overall usage and understand how the Service is accessed.

GoatCounter does not use cookies, does not assign persistent identifiers, and does not track users across sites. Collected information is limited to aggregated usage statistics such as page views, approximate location, browser information, and interaction events.

Analytics data is used solely to improve the Service and understand usage patterns.

12. Data Retention

• Raw operational logs are retained only as long as necessary for security and reliability.
• Search queries and evaluation data may be retained long-term for research and longitudinal analysis.
• Aggregated and anonymized datasets may be retained indefinitely.

13. Legal Basis for Processing (GDPR)

For users in the EU/EEA, processing is based on:

• Legitimate interest (research, benchmarking, service improvement, abuse prevention),
• User consent, implied by voluntary use of the Service after being informed through this Privacy Policy.

The Service does not perform automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects on users.

14. User Rights

Under GDPR, users have rights including access, objection, and restriction of processing.

Due to anonymization and aggregation, fulfilling certain requests (such as deletion of individual contributions) may not always be technically possible.

15. Change of Operator / Data Controller

The Service, its infrastructure, and associated datasets may be transferred in the future to a legal entity (for example, a company established in the European Union).

In such a case:

• the new operator will become the data controller,
• the nature and purposes of processing will remain unchanged,
• processing will continue under this Privacy Policy or a substantively equivalent one.

Users will be informed of any material changes.

16. Changes to This Policy

This Privacy Policy may be updated as the Service evolves. The 'Last updated' date will reflect changes. Continued use of the Service constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

17. Contact

For privacy-related questions or requests, contact: search-bench@kirillmaltsev.net