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Then that is their ONLY claim against Google (yet not Google alone). Everything else on that donttrack.us page is applicable to any and every search engine or W

Then that is their ONLY claim against Google (yet not Google alone). Everything else on that donttrack.us page is applicable to any and every search engine or Website. I believe DDG is being disingenuous by making it sound like this a Google-only thing. Even if Google is the big guy they want to go after, they should be up front that this is not something that makes Google evil or is specific to Google.

potatolicious 16y ago
donttrack.us also rips on third-party ad networks that are non-Google for extending the tracking even further. This also seems to be the core reason why DDG rails against search terms in referral URLs, since it's a major enabler for third-party network tracking. So yes, DDG is targeting the 800# gorilla in its marketing, but it's not unjustified, nor has DDG claimed on the donttrack.us page that Google is the sole culprit in the destruction of user privacy. There's a certain amount of opportunism in this billboard/privacy ad campaign here, that much is obvious. But, as a search engine it does not seem unreasonable to call out the failings of your main competitor.
- coderdude 16y ago
  >donttrack.us also rips on third-party ad networks that are non-Google for extending the tracking even further On the site it says "Those sites usually have third-party ads. and those third-parties build profiles about you," How are they able to do this? Because Google lets them. That's the message they are sending across to people. The entire campaign is anti-Google only in nature. It's not this fair and balanced reporting on privacy that you're making it out to be. >nor has DDG claimed on the donttrack.us page that Google is the sole culprit in the destruction of user privacy Their campaign only talks about Google. That's the only name and logo they ever show or speak of.
  - potatolicious 16y ago
    > "That's the message they are sending across to people." Which is true. > "The entire campaign is anti-Google only in nature." Well, yes. DDG is a search engine. They are targeting their chief competitor, a search engine, in their marketing. > "It's not this fair and balanced reporting on privacy that you're making it out to be." Correction: it's not a comprehensive guide to everything online that violates your privacy. But donttrack.us never claimed to be. You seem to be under the impression that the intent for donttrack.us is an entirely selfless, complete, and comprehensive guide. Now, I'm not affiliated with DDG, but it seems absurd to derive that from the site. The way I see it is: yes, they're targeting Google, but that's not exactly unfair given that Google is DDG's chief competitor. If you were Subway, running attack ads on McDonald's on the obesity angle, why would you waste your breath also ripping apart I Can't Believe It's Not Butter? Nothing DDG has said is false, nor (IMHO) have they deceived their users by omission. Everything in this campaign is accurate. I simply don't see the outrage. Now, whether or not the privacy issue is even worth fretting about, or whether using DDG will reverse the tide of privacy destruction that you're exposed to everywhere else, that's another issue entirely. DDG hasn't claimed that switching from Google will fix all of your privacy woes, but what they do claim is that it will fix the privacy violation that Google directly allows. That seems fair enough.
    - coderdude 16y ago
      >it seems absurd to derive that from the site I'm not deriving that aspect of my argument from the site. I'm deriving it from your argument that it is balanced and makes mention of things outside of Google ("third parties"). >If you were Subway, running attack ads on McDonald's on the obesity angle, why would you waste your breath also ripping apart I Can't Believe It's Not Butter? If Subway ran an anti-obesity campaign and only mentioned McDonald's I would feel the same way about it because you're making your largest competitor seem worse than they really are by failing to tell the whole story. If you're not going to disclose the entire truth about an industry you shouldn't bother delivering the half-truth simply because it's not worth your time to attack smaller fish. >Nothing DDG has said is false, nor (IMHO) have they deceived their users by omission But it is disingenuous to make it appear that Google is the sole search engine or Website that does this or affects users in this way, which is what you said I was being when I made the claim that this is just anti-Google FUD, which it is. >DDG hasn't claimed that switching from Google will fix all of your privacy woes That's the impression that I get from donttrack.us and I'm sure that was intentional.
tzs 16y ago
An ad that says "Google, Bing, Yahoo all do bad thing X. Our search engine that you never heard of before this ad does not!", one response in the readers mind might be "If all the ones I heard of do X, maybe it isn't bad". If an ad is going to mention competitors, it is best to just name one competitor in cases like this, where the reader might not have heard of you before. If the market is more even, mentioning others might be OK. For example, if Honda put in some new safety feature in the CR-V, it would be OK for them to name the Toyota RAV4 and Subaru Forester in their ads, because all three companies are well known to most readers.
- coderdude 16y ago
  >one response in the readers mind might be "If all the ones I heard of do X, maybe it isn't bad" Somehow I doubt a reader can frame what donttrack.us says in a good light if you also include Bing and Yahoo. It talks about shady employees, getting hacked, people finding out you have herpes, etc. >If the market is more even, mentioning others might be OK >it would be OK for them to name the Toyota RAV4 and Subaru Forester in their ads, because all three companies are well known to most readers Google, Bing, and Yahoo are known by basically everyone, so I think there is some inconsistency with your argument. That, or you're conflating market-share and mind-share.
  - kiiski 16y ago
    He spoke about a situation where the customer hasn't heard of you (DuckDuckGo in this case).

potatolicious 16y ago

donttrack.us also rips on third-party ad networks that are non-Google for extending the tracking even further. This also seems to be the core reason why DDG rails against search terms in referral URLs, since it's a major enabler for third-party network tracking. So yes, DDG is targeting the 800# gorilla in its marketing, but it's not unjustified, nor has DDG claimed on the donttrack.us page that Google is the sole culprit in the destruction of user privacy. There's a certain amount of opportunism in this billboard/privacy ad campaign here, that much is obvious. But, as a search engine it does not seem unreasonable to call out the failings of your main competitor.

coderdude 16y ago
>donttrack.us also rips on third-party ad networks that are non-Google for extending the tracking even further On the site it says "Those sites usually have third-party ads. and those third-parties build profiles about you," How are they able to do this? Because Google lets them. That's the message they are sending across to people. The entire campaign is anti-Google only in nature. It's not this fair and balanced reporting on privacy that you're making it out to be. >nor has DDG claimed on the donttrack.us page that Google is the sole culprit in the destruction of user privacy Their campaign only talks about Google. That's the only name and logo they ever show or speak of.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  > "That's the message they are sending across to people." Which is true. > "The entire campaign is anti-Google only in nature." Well, yes. DDG is a search engine. They are targeting their chief competitor, a search engine, in their marketing. > "It's not this fair and balanced reporting on privacy that you're making it out to be." Correction: it's not a comprehensive guide to everything online that violates your privacy. But donttrack.us never claimed to be. You seem to be under the impression that the intent for donttrack.us is an entirely selfless, complete, and comprehensive guide. Now, I'm not affiliated with DDG, but it seems absurd to derive that from the site. The way I see it is: yes, they're targeting Google, but that's not exactly unfair given that Google is DDG's chief competitor. If you were Subway, running attack ads on McDonald's on the obesity angle, why would you waste your breath also ripping apart I Can't Believe It's Not Butter? Nothing DDG has said is false, nor (IMHO) have they deceived their users by omission. Everything in this campaign is accurate. I simply don't see the outrage. Now, whether or not the privacy issue is even worth fretting about, or whether using DDG will reverse the tide of privacy destruction that you're exposed to everywhere else, that's another issue entirely. DDG hasn't claimed that switching from Google will fix all of your privacy woes, but what they do claim is that it will fix the privacy violation that Google directly allows. That seems fair enough.
  - coderdude 16y ago
    >it seems absurd to derive that from the site I'm not deriving that aspect of my argument from the site. I'm deriving it from your argument that it is balanced and makes mention of things outside of Google ("third parties"). >If you were Subway, running attack ads on McDonald's on the obesity angle, why would you waste your breath also ripping apart I Can't Believe It's Not Butter? If Subway ran an anti-obesity campaign and only mentioned McDonald's I would feel the same way about it because you're making your largest competitor seem worse than they really are by failing to tell the whole story. If you're not going to disclose the entire truth about an industry you shouldn't bother delivering the half-truth simply because it's not worth your time to attack smaller fish. >Nothing DDG has said is false, nor (IMHO) have they deceived their users by omission But it is disingenuous to make it appear that Google is the sole search engine or Website that does this or affects users in this way, which is what you said I was being when I made the claim that this is just anti-Google FUD, which it is. >DDG hasn't claimed that switching from Google will fix all of your privacy woes That's the impression that I get from donttrack.us and I'm sure that was intentional.

tzs 16y ago

An ad that says "Google, Bing, Yahoo all do bad thing X. Our search engine that you never heard of before this ad does not!", one response in the readers mind might be "If all the ones I heard of do X, maybe it isn't bad". If an ad is going to mention competitors, it is best to just name one competitor in cases like this, where the reader might not have heard of you before. If the market is more even, mentioning others might be OK. For example, if Honda put in some new safety feature in the CR-V, it would be OK for them to name the Toyota RAV4 and Subaru Forester in their ads, because all three companies are well known to most readers.

coderdude 16y ago
>one response in the readers mind might be "If all the ones I heard of do X, maybe it isn't bad" Somehow I doubt a reader can frame what donttrack.us says in a good light if you also include Bing and Yahoo. It talks about shady employees, getting hacked, people finding out you have herpes, etc. >If the market is more even, mentioning others might be OK >it would be OK for them to name the Toyota RAV4 and Subaru Forester in their ads, because all three companies are well known to most readers Google, Bing, and Yahoo are known by basically everyone, so I think there is some inconsistency with your argument. That, or you're conflating market-share and mind-share.
- kiiski 16y ago
  He spoke about a situation where the customer hasn't heard of you (DuckDuckGo in this case).