A Dutch search firm said today that it will stop recording details of its users' online activity in response to growing concerns over internet privacy.

The company behind the Ixquick metasearch engine claimed that the move makes it the only search engine permanently to delete all personal search details gleaned from user log files. 

"This new feature of our search engine ensures optimal privacy protection and maximum search performance for our customers, since they will be able to search using the 12 best search engines without their personal data being recorded," said Ixquick spokesman Alex van Eesteren.

Eesteren explained that internet search engines register the time of searches, the terms used, the sites visited and the originating IP addresses.

"Many search engines openly use this data for commercial purposes. It seems only to be a question of time before the data gets misused," said Eesteren.

"Therefore we have decided to permanently delete all personal search records. If the data is not stored, users' privacy cannot be breached."