UPDATE: Yahoo and Google spy on you: Ask.com offers Privacy Switch

I posted about search engines mining your private data and web surfing history in order to target ads based on your searches and pages you've visited. Today the Wall St Journal reports that Ask.com added a privacy tool to let you erase data they've collected about you.

The new feature, dubbed AskEraser, gives users control over whether their information is retained by the search engine. Company officials and privacy advocates hope the "privacy switch" will pressure other Internet companies to follow suit.

"Anywhere that you log into, anywhere where you put in personalized information, there should be a way - an easy way - to control how that information is used and retained," said Doug Leeds, senior vice president at Ask.com

Read more Via Digital Trends