Sure, Google says it plans to reduce the amount of time it hangs on to personal user data for. But Ask.com is aiming to win the anonymous web search war (is there a war? Did somebody forget to tell us?) with a new weapon: AskEraser.

Here's how it works. You enter a search term into the world's 4th most popular search engine. Ask.com will perform the search. And then it will immediately forget your name. Just like that cute guy/girl you met at the bar last week.

You'll be able to set your privacy preferences and they will be clearly viewable on the search results page so you will always know whether Ask is holding your data or erasing it.

AskEraser isn't available yet, but the press release indicates it's coming soon. The company also plans to roll out a new system that will disassociate search history from an IP address or cookie after 18 months -- which is pretty much the same thing Google has promised.