- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- technology@lemmy.world
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the CEO sealioning after the author asked them not to contact them anymore is a bit icky, too.
Kagi is one of the least trustworthy companies I’ve seen recently. I know it has fans, but it constantly talks out of both sides of its mouth.
Kagi does not give a solitary damn about privacy as the average person understands it.
Kagi lied in its emails.
“AI is mentioned zero times”
…is clearly incorrect.
There’s quite a lot more to distrust about a company that wants to lock you into a filter bubble.
Turns out Kagi does do advertising
They promote their search engine but their users don’t get to see ads. I don’t know what’s wrong about that. Every company advertises with its products. I don’t see what’s reprehensible about that.
We did not say we maintain anonmity, but privacy, which are two different things. For example. your parents may know everything about you, yet still respect your privacy.
They’re right, anonymity and privacy are two different things. Since you have to pay to use Kagi, you’re not anonymous. But they allegedly don’t know what you as the user search for when using their search engine. So they’re being honest here and how can honesty be bad here? Anyways, we’re on privacy@lemmy.ml, not anonymity@lemmy.ml or whatever.
“AI is mentioned zero times”
While I still give you this one, they’re technically correct. The word “AI” isn’t there but they mention AI features, haha. It’s a bit debatable since Vlad said “kagi.com” - which doesn’t mention AI or AI tools. Only when you go to the pricing page there are mentions of AI tools.
I don’t think we have an argument except maybe on technicality, so I’ll do my best to use your points as a springboard for further clarification/critique of Kagi and not of you.
They promote their search engine but their users don’t get to see ads. I don’t know what’s wrong about that.
What’s wrong is Vlad had just said “That community is 100% responsible for Kagi’s growth as a business through word of mouth (Kagi does no paid advertising)”
And he should be the first person to know that statement isn’t correct.
may know everything about you, yet still respect your privacy.
The problem here is that nobody in this community will recommend a corporation that “may know everything about you but respect your privacy.”
- When recommending a messager service, common consensus always leans towards the one that knows the least about you.
- This is because corporations can change or be forced to give up data, which would render the pinkie-promise of “we won’t” moot
- I’ve seen an argument posted here or on Reddit that Google is technically private because they know about you and won’t sell ads; it’s basically the Kagi line. Basically nobody cares even if it’s true (and it’s turned out to not be true).
Vlad said “kagi.com” - which doesn’t mention AI or AI tools.
Maybe not the homepage, but the site itself is very explicit about AI being the point of their project. And if Kagi will change their statements about everything else on a dime, and have such poor views on privacy, why not also follow their own manifesto?
You can read their pro-AI manifesto on the Kagi.com domain right here.
You can read a critique of this manifesto and how it talks about you “volunteering” your data to search engines, and other creepy stuff, right here.
I enjoyed reading the article. To me, the perspective of the owner reminds me of the owners of Brave in that they are Libertarian in ways that seem aligned with mainstream views at a glance but the Venn diagram also overlaps with a disdain for regulation, while portraying a (potential) facade of being eternally infallible and trustworthy while also being a for-profit company.
Elon Musk also comes to mind in that his intelligence leaves him vulnerable to overlooking the nuances of conversations and alternative point of views. I think there’s a general over reliance on artificial intelligence as a savior that will be fully embraced that will lead to large issues in the short/long term for Kagi.
Personally, it always felt a little bit like astroturfing hearing all of the kagi fanboys in every privacy thread, but for what it’s worth, seeing them show up live In the flesh in this thread as well makes me feel a bit less like I’m talking to bots lol
Personally, I self-host my own version of searXng that only uses search engines that don’t track my IP address. I’d say that those results are good enough 90% of the time, and when I need something more granular, I use a publicly hosted version of searXng that uses Google in its results
How can anyone worry about IP addresses when the search engine also knows your real world payment credentials? That and privacy don’t really mix.
They know the names of their customers but they don’t know their search queries. There’s the privacy. At least that’s what they said. Since Kagi isn’t Open Source it always comes down to trust.
So, this means Proton is not private either? Any product you pay for cannot be private?
There is a difference between anonimity and privacy.
Email is inherently not private. Even if your own provider zealously protects your privacy, if the person you’re emailing uses Gmail, that’s all she wrote.
Am I the only one thinking Lori comes across as a bit of a dick here?
Yeah kind of, but the CEO needs to learn that not everyone will like their products, you cant convince everyone.
The person said that they dont want to engage with the discussion, then the CEO should have just let it be.
This is the second CEO to be a weirdo to a random person in the past month. First it was the Tumblr CEO, now it’s the Kagi one.
Kagi was already in hot water for ignoring its paying customers’ previous complaints, so this whole “I really want to know your opinion, we are a human first company!” thing really sounds disingenuous after the same CEO overruled away all criticism or tried shuffling it away from public channels and onto his much more closed-off Discord.
Holdup, what did the tumblr CEO do? Havent heard about that, im curious.
The Tumblr (and WordPress and Automattic) CEO, Matt Mullenweg, banned somebody for life over apparently “explicit” Tumblr content, and that got backlash from the LGBT community.
Instead of shaking it off like an adult,
- Matt (allegedly) DMed dozens of people,
- followed the Tumblr user to Twitter to argue there too
- complained that the Tumblr user had other edgy/explicit usernames
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/tumblr-ceo-transphobic-moderation-controversy
This man’s platform (Wordpress) powers most of the internet and he’s worried about catgirlballsack on Tumblr.
I am suspicious of anything I see being pushed as heavily as Kagi is pushed by it’s alleged users.
We’re just vocal because we’ve been suffering over the enshittification of Google search for so long.
There are numerous other popular search engines out there though.
yeah they suck
Seems like this one is in good company then.
zing?
Removed by mod
Successful CEOs need to learn to shut the fuck up.
I spun up a docker container for searxng
Next step is to make it public to help other people and blend your data/traffic
My host-fu is weak and the uptime is terrivle right now… Trying to figure out why the container just crashed randomly
Open a search app to the public? So their searches come from my IP address? No fucking way, unless I’m missing something.
👍
I enjoy kagi as a service that I’ve paid for, but yeah… stuff like this makes it hard to enjoy with a clear conscience.
I think the op already said this, but at least this shows that a product like this (with a little more focus, transparency, and integrity) could be sustainable.
