Hiding in Plain Sight: Query Obfuscation via Random Multilingual Searches

TL;DR

This paper introduces a client-side query obfuscation method using multilingual random searches to protect user privacy by disrupting search engine profiling, demonstrating its effectiveness in experiments.

Contribution

It presents a novel, lightweight, client-side approach for privacy preservation in search engines through multilingual query obfuscation, validated by experimental results.

Findings

Obfuscation shifts user interest profiles significantly.

Displayed results remain stable despite obfuscation.

The method effectively prevents accurate user profiling.

Abstract

Modern search engines extensively personalize results by building detailed user profiles based on query history and behaviour. While personalization can enhance relevance, it introduces privacy risks and can lead to filter bubbles. This paper proposes and evaluates a lightweight, client-side query obfuscation strategy using randomly generated multilingual search queries to disrupt user profiling. Through controlled experiments on the Seznam.cz search engine, we assess the impact of interleaving real queries with obfuscating noise in various language configurations and ratios. Our findings show that while displayed search results remain largely stable, the search engine's identified user interests shift significantly under obfuscation. We further demonstrate that such random queries can prevent accurate profiling and overwrite established user profiles. This study provides practical evidence for query obfuscation as a viable privacy-preserving mechanism and introduces a tool that enables users to autonomously protect their search behaviour without modifying existing infrastructure.