You’re missing out on the millions and millions of people in countries where censorship and government oppression exist, and those millions of people dwarf the relatively few nefarious people you’re talking about… Even people outside of censorship use secure proxy services when accessing the internet from wireless hotspots.

I’m a founding partner at a company that provides secure, encrypted proxy connections. In certain countries, using a secure proxy is a necessity for protection against the oppressive governments as well as just getting access to blocked sites such as youtube, facebook, or blog sites.

Looking at startpage.com’s offering, it should hardly be considered a solution for privacy. Ever. Even using standard unencrypted proxies is not a solution, as your communication still goes through as plaintext.