We have to admit – when first introduced to MyShoppingGenie, one of the first things that crossed our minds was “Is this one of “those” toolbars?” If you don’t know what we’re talking about – be thankful. You’ve never had to deal with the potential risks associated with these types of products. Sure, they look cool and do hold some advantage to the end user – for a price.

If you still don’t know what we’re talking about – MyShoppingGenie addresses the issue directly on the company website which states:

“The MyShoppingGenie shopping and search App does not collect, save or transmit any information about you, your computer, your search habits, your email address, your Internet connection or anything else.

We also certify that the MyShoppingGenie App contains no adware, spyware, malware or anything else that interferes with the operation of your computer or your privacy. The Genie App only appears on your computer screen when you open and use a major search engine.”

User privacy has become a huge issue for those who want to protect it. There have been rumblings in recent years aimed at Google over findings that every single search term ever queried and user click on the search engine can be traced back to a particular IP address and computer. (Over 10 years of data!) A company like Google however, would never actually sell that information to anyone and betray the trust of over 75% of computer users who make Google their preferred search engine. (Therefore, cutting their own throat.)

Smaller companies however who are trying to get a leg up can and do take advantage of this situation making adware, spyware and malware a huge problem for end users who don’t want to be bombarded with ads, or want others tracking what they’re doing on their computer. Malware, which is short of “malicious software” can be a huge pain to get rid of, and often wipes out entire systems before it’s finally disposed of.

During the installation of the free MyShoppingGenie application, it’s simple enough to see and agree MyShoppingGenie doesn’t even ask for user information. There’s no registration required, or any questions concerning name, address, or e-mail.

While MyShoppingGenie states it does not pass on or track user information – honestly, we just took them for their word having no reason to doubt it was true until last week.

In a stroke of luck or what could be considered irony – verification that the application doesn’t need user information came from none other than critics themselves who have been frantically attempting to discredit the company because of fears and phobias surrounding the company’s distribution model – not necessarily the product.

Here’s what they’ve found:

“Anyone can check this out for themselves if they have the technical know-how. Install the MSG application, and have a network traffic sniffer running. Do a search and then click on an MSG result. When you go through the network traffic logs collected by your sniffer you will note that the MSG application DOES NOT track any user clicks and DOES NOT send that information to any MSG related domain.”

If the MyShoppingGenie application did track user clicks on various domains and servers sending it back to MyShoppingGenie it would be considered “spyware”.

All that trouble with some “traffic sniffer”-  and all they had to do was read the company statement above. (But we do appreciate the verification.)

Frankly, you don’t actually need a fancy “traffic sniffer” to verify that a search engine query (the search term) IS passed to Payless Search, Shopping.com, BizRate, PriceGrabber, DealTime, and Google Products. If the search query matches, how could there be no communication? A search term, along with a packet of information telling the related shopping site the “hit” or “traffic” was sent from a MyShoppingGenie application is where the communication ends however.

In regards to pay-per-click (PPC) as a License Holder, our trust lies within each of the corresponding shopping sites that MyShoppingGenie links to for tracking to credit clicks and commissions – not MyShoppingGenie itself. Connecting to, and supplying offers from all these brand name stores and sites is a key reason why we’ve categorized MyShoppingGenie as a true “Direct Sales” model and company – rather than an MLM or Network Marketing Company.

In closing, a special note for License Holders to verify how this works. If you’ve submitted your Amazon.com user account into the MyShoppingGenie back office, do a search on any computer you know your application is installed. (You’re moms, your neighbors, or a co-worker.) Then go to Amazon.com through MyShoppingGenie. You’ll find the matching search term with your unique identifier you’ve submitted (account number) in that URL.

After landing on Amazon.com, no other communication, special “traffic sniffer”, or technical know-how required.

We certainly trust a company like Amazon.com from that point on, wouldn’t you?