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It seems sort of like you're destroying the possibility for growth with this, though. From what I understand of Google's work, they really have improved tremend
by devinj 17y ago
It seems sort of like you're destroying the possibility for growth with this, though. From what I understand of Google's work, they really have improved tremendously from analyzing data (to find how searches go wrong), and from using the data in new features (such as with spell checking, adding new terms into the query, personalizing searches, etc.).
And I mean, I value privacy. I do. But, I value the quality of the search results even more than whatever privacy is lost from search engines logging, I guess. Unless there is some path to improvement, all I can ever see myself using Duck Duck Go for is porn, tips on murdering my spouses, and information on illegal drugs. Of course, other people would use it for much more-- but for me, there something truly wonderful about being able to search for "nose" and have the first result be a unit test runner I want to use, not a piece of anatomy I already know everything I need to about. Sure, it's stupid-- I should search for "nose tests", but I sometimes make mistakes, and here Google doesn't even need to say so and make me try again. It finds the target anyway, without problems (and the less-likely Wikipedia article is right below, as result #2). Without Google logging what I searched for and building a profile, this wouldn't be possible.
I don't mean to be fanboyish and loving of Google (they do scare me sometimes). If they added some sort of feature that said, "don't record anything I do right now with these searches", I would be very happy. But, similarly, I would also be happy if Duck Duck Go at least had an option to opt-in to logging and monitoring and so on. On my end, I would consider my relatively minimal, and explicitly given, loss of privacy to be worth it to help make a search engine I am using better (assuming, of course, that I'm using it-- and I'm not opposed to trying something new to me).
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoThere is a lot you can do with the aggregate query data. I do plan to eventually have accounts, i.e. opt-in features. And as for results, I would suggest you try it for a week or so and see for yourself.
- moultano 17y agoThe best reason to keep identity in your logs is spam prevention. It may not be a big deal now, but it will be if this works out.
- elai 17y agoWhy don't you just hash the ip and do a geo ip lookup before you log it? Voila, you add privacy, but keep the relevant data.
- lena 17y agoIn my opinion Google results used to be great before they did all the personalizing, and now they are often really bad. I get infuriated sometimes how hard it is to search for a specific term. I have to use all kinds of + and - signs in my search terms to get anything near a meaningful result and it is not straightforward at all to simply go to an English version of a Google site because Google insists that I must be Dutch and therefore only want localized information. Of course they did not get worse because of the personalizing (though the location-based stuff absolutely has to go away - we have browser language strings for that, don't try to guess what I want if I have a way to tell you what I want), but I do think they did pretty well before they did all that, so I see no reason why DuckDuckGo can't as well and wish them the best.
- lionhearted 17y ago> it is not straightforward at all to simply go to an English version of a Google site because Google insists that I must be Dutch and therefore only want localized information This kills me when traveling. There's ways around it, but it's a bit of a hassle. Really one of my only hassles with Google, though I understand it probably serves 99%+ of searches better.
- evannyx 17y agoTry http://www.google.com/ncr http://www.google.com/ncr