resrchr.com is the modern culmination of a project begun in 1996, if I recall correctly. Its origins are in "contentsphere.com," which was a too-early Website project that was social (but preceded the social Web by a decade), was about filtering hyperabundance (but preceded hyperabundance by nearly a decade), and was a project that I realized, after development, would appeal only to a too-small audience of research geeks, if I was lucky. I was unlikely to become a dotcom zillionaire.

At the time, for any Website to exist, expensive servers (with deep server infrastructure) were required. It was hugely expensive to initiate a new idea. Things have changed, and I'm delighted to be rethinking the whole enterprise, fifteen years later. A much larger audience of Web-connected viewers means many more research geeks may find resrchr.com useful, and we may be able to reproduce the best elements of the envisioned contentsphere.com, but in a simper set of clothes. We may enable a growing, user-enhanced, researcher-assisted network of terms, and texts, and more, if it takes off at all.

Once resrchr.com obtains takeoff status -- a few hundreds of engaged, page-creating members, and a few tens of thousands of visitors per month -- it will begin to enter what I think of as "the dangerous phase."

This service is designed to facilitate fine-tuned, selective, individually-modulated search, through the lens of a specific topic. As such, our service could conceivably become something that acquired a fine-tuned analysis of your interests and curiousities. These data bits imply an interest lots more invasive than those "what kind of '60s song are you?" Facebook questionnaires, in terms of harvesting personal data about who you are, how you think, what you care about, what you don't care about, and what you buy. I'm the one in charge, and that's not what I will allow resrchr.com to become.

In order for me to want to continue this project, our business must not be about reselling your data, or repurposing it, or maximizing our profitability. In fact, we go to some lengths to NOT be in maximal control of (or even record) what you search for, or what you save, or what you make public.

Of course, we want our business to be sustainable. I'd like to be able to make a reasonable living, enhancing the capabilities and tools of the project. Currently, how we sustain ourselves (how we "monetize" the service) is essentially a passive activity -- we allow Google's algorithms to determine in-page advertisements that are related to the terms included in our resrchr.com pages. If their algorithms are smart enough, then they'll be smarter than we are -- and they will attract your eyes, and accrue us pennies by enticing a click.

Enough of those will put a few dimes or dollars into our bank account. If we have enough pages, and enough people find our services interesting and useful, then we'll never have any need to change our business model, NS I can spend my time (and even my staff's time) working to improve the utility of the project. Enough pennies can add up to a reasonable living for a small handful of people. We're not big, nor do we care to be, but we hope to be able to expand appropriately.

So here is our compact with you, our potential member, and our current viewer: We will not sell your data without your say-so. We will not give up your data without a fight, to any private or government entity, unless they can convince Michael Jensen, the founder of resrchr.com, that an imminent and real threat to public safety is involved.

We would rather close up shop than facilitate any kind of round-up of suspects, usual or otherwise.

And we'll not maintain any substantive record of your activities on our site, either.

We hope you respect our approach, and applaud our choice.