  This contribution to the debate on confidence limits focuses mostly on the
case of measurements with `open likelihood', in the sense that it is defined in
the text. I will show that, though a prior-free assessment of {\it confidence}
is, in general, not possible, still a search result can be reported in a mostly
unbiased and efficient way, which satisfies some desiderata which I believe are
shared by the people interested in the subject. The simpler case of `closed
likelihood' will also be treated, and I will discuss why a uniform prior on a
sensible quantity is a very reasonable choice for most applications. In both
cases, I think that much clarity will be achieved if we remove from scientific
parlance the misleading expressions `confidence intervals' and `confidence
levels'.
