Another new search engine, Youcom, has debuted on the Internet However, for a venture that emphasizes privacy, it seems a bit intrusive

"Youcom is sparking a movement to take back the Internet and give people control over the information they consume so they can lead more thoughtful digital lives without being manipulated

"At youcom, we are fostering a more open interface where people can contribute We don't just like! or upvote or engage, but also to co-create apps and content in an environment of trust, facts, and kindness"

Saucher holds a PhD in computer science from Stanford University and until recently worked on artificial intelligence and natural language processing at Salesforce Marc Benioff, head of Salesforce, has been named lead investor in Youcom (The company promises that it "does not sell personal information, does not track users over the Internet," and "does not provide targeted advertising that violates privacy"

So when we tried to use Youcom, we were a bit surprised - and immediately told that we needed to install a Chrome extension first

Yikes! We know how abusive Chrome extensions can be and how much data they can collect, so we recommend having as few extensions enabled as possible

OK, what about "searchyoucom"? No, it's a 404 Brave Search, a privacy-oriented search engine that debuted in recent months, is unconditionally available at "searchbravecom"

However, it turns out that most browsers allow Youcom to be added as the default search engine (Here are the instruction pages for most major browsers)

Anyway, I gave Youcom a try Searching for "fish" brought up a nice-looking grid of search results in rounded square tiles, perfect for mobile screens This page is quite different from the text-heavy list interface you get with most search engines Instead, it resembles what we would have seen if Apple had developed its own search engine

Dictionary definitions lead the results, followed by web search results that are nearly identical to Bing's results News articles were next, followed by Wikipedia links in their own column (Google, Brave Search, and the privacy-conscious DuckDuckGo all led Wikipedia) No ads were displayed

Youcom says its results are based in part on user feedback and that you can re-rank the results you get We tried to do so, but were immediately prompted to create a Youcom user account and provide our full name and e-mail address So much for complete privacy

In fact, the people searching for things online may not be actual customers of Youcom

Speaking to VentureBeat, Socher said, "Our new platform will allow companies to post the most useful actual content on the first page, and if users like it, they can take action on the spot" (27]

According to a TechCrunch article, Youcom plans to "focus on complex consumer purchases," which suggests that Youcom may plan to make some money through affiliate links

However, it is not yet entirely clear what Youcom's business model is, and Socher would not tell VentureBeat or TechCrunch what it is (VentureBeat did get word that Youcom has about 30 employees) However, Benioff and several venture capitalists seem to be expecting something worth their investment

We have a few questions for Youcom and will update this article as soon as we receive a reply