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

"You.com 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 you.com, 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 You.com. (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 You.com, 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 "search.you.com"? No, it's a 404. Brave Search, a privacy-oriented search engine that debuted in recent months, is unconditionally available at "search.brave.com."

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

Anyway, I gave You.com 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.

You.com 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 You.com 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 You.com.

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, You.com plans to "focus on complex consumer purchases," which suggests that You.com may plan to make some money through affiliate links.

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

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