Clusty Goes Crazy

Up until tonight, my favorite search engine was Clusty.com. I especially liked their "Privacy" page, where they explained that, (unlike other search engines) they didn't track your searches. Searching is practically a form of talking to yourself. Why let ourselves be recorded, day after day, by phalanxes of strangers?

But tonight, after midnight, I suddenly noticed that my search pages had a different skin. And a different company name. "Yippy."

Yippy? Was this for real? Was Clusty just gone? I checked the Privacy page, and at first it sounded the same. But then it veered into the surreal: (emphasis added)

… Now search engines want to know you very well indeed: your queries, the pages you visit, the books you buy, the email you send, your age, sex, zip code, etc. etc. This new world order is an inviting target of snoops or agencies that want to analyze, censor, or monitor you. Since we take great steps to provide our users with the safest possible environment, the need to track US Citizens in our borders is not necessary.

So to all the good people of the greatest nation on God’s earth we say, "surf and search away, all the time and NO QUESTIONS ASKED. We trust you will love Yippy and all the services we offer. We are proud to be Americans; "One Nation Under God."

International users ONLY are subject to forms of tracking depending as required on the country from which they originate.

Was this for real?

For comparison, here's how Clusty.com said it, from an old page on archive.org (http://web.archive.org/web/20080728003842/http://clusty.com/privacy)

…Now search engines want to know you very well indeed: your queries, the pages you visit, the books you buy, the email you send, your age, sex, zip code, etc. etc. This new world is an inviting target of snoops or agencies that want to analyze, censor, or monitor you.

We at Clusty don't track you. Our toolbar doesn't track you. We don't want to know your email address.

Just search, all the time. No questions asked.

When you compare the two, the Yippy page looks like some high schooler cracked in and decided to take some pot shots at his Red State parents, without bothering to rewrite the whole thing from scratch.

As I looked at their other pages, it only got crazier.

From the About page (emphasis added)

MISSION STATEMENT:

We are the creators of all that is good and helpful. Our mission is for the good in everything. Our products and services are for those who desire a protected place in which to conduct computing and online activities through the .yippy VPN grid. Yippy is simply hardware mated to dynamic software sets through a worldwide LAN using a virtual ubiquitously connected web-based operating system. Yippy focuses on clean and innovative web development programs for all types of web activities. Yippy will promote the positive and shun the negative of the digital world.

What we do is just good!

It goes back to techno-corporate-speak for awhile, but then ends with …

Oh, we should say that we are a very far-out group of people. Everyone is a certified genius here and we work together for our goals for the love of it all. Good vs. Don't be Evil … We are too smart to sell out to Porn, Gambling and other things that infect our society for profit. Good always wins, and conservative values will bring us our victory in the market place.

Summing it up !!!

God controls all creative thought it's what you do with it that defines who you are.

Are you Good or Evil?

Wow. By now I thought the site must have been cracked. But no, it looks like Clusty really did get bought by "Yippy". So what is this? Disgruntled Clusty employees on their way out? A cracker taking advantage of migration woes?

Or can these people really have figured out how to raise $5.55 million to buy Clusty, and yet be capable of sentences like, "We are the creators of all that is good and helpful."

I mean, ordinary corporatespeak is horrid in its own way. But it has a relative sanity. (Emphasis on "relative.")

And though I miss having God in the public sphere, it's sobering to realize what CEOs might be saying about him on their About pages, if they thought it was safe.

I really hope this is a prank. I'm afraid it's not.