Improving Query Delay in Private Web Search

The Internet is a huge repository of information. Web search engines are a basic tool for finding and accessing all this information. However, these tools might also be a threat for the privacy of their users. This happens because users frequently reveal private information in their queries. Web search engines gather this personal data, store it during a large period of time and use it to improve their search results and to increase their economical benefits. In order to avoid this situation, it is necessary to provide web search methods that preserve the privacy of the users. Current proposals in the literature increase significantly the query delay. This is the time that users have to wait in order to obtain the search results for their queries. In this paper, we propose a modification of the Useless User Profile (UUP) protocol. The resulting scheme has been tested in an open environment and the results show that it achieves the lowest query delay which has been reported in the literature. In addition to that, it incentivizes users to follow the protocol in order to protect their privacy.