Google Tests Encrypted Search

Google now offers users a way to better protect their search sessions from prying eyes.
Google has long been the clear market leader in search, but that doesn't mean the company is sitting still. The search giant has scores of projects designed to improve performance and add features to its Google.com search engine.
Traditionally, the higher-profile issue for search engines like Google and Yahoo is that they maintain a record of users' search sessions for several months as part of a massive data collection the companies say is needed to help improve search results.
But like other successful Web sites, Google also faces security threat. Now Google is tackling a different slice of the privacy issue by launching a beta of its standard Google search that's encrypted with the same Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology used by many Web services including e-commerce sites and Google's own Gmail service. Web addresses that begin with the letters "https" are SSL-protected.