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(I'm in all-day training today, so I can't participate on this thread much. Also, this is all my personal opinion.) While Gabe's most recent post was a well-wo

• andrewljohnson 16y ago
  Well, All this FUD has ensured that I'll never try DDG. It's sad really - it's not even a real search engine, just some hack using APIs. And the best marketing Whiny-berg can come up with is half-truths about referer linking. I'll stick with the search engine that has a legion of brilliant programmers working hard to bring me great search results.
  • epi0Bauqu 16y ago
    I'm sorry you feel that way. All I can say is that I tried my hardest in this post to do the opposite of FUD. I believe this is a serious issue and I am trying to get it solved for everyone.
    • axod 16y ago
      You haven't begun to establish people want it "solved". There are already solutions for the people who want them (stop sending referer, adblock, etc). FWIW, I do not want Google to change their behavior in this area.
      • blahedo 16y ago
        > You haven't begun to establish people want it "solved". I think we'll all agree that "people" in general (NB: not us) don't even understand the problem, so it's a little premature to claim a problem based on not wanting it solved. At this point I see it largely as an education campaign.
        • true_religion 16y ago
          While I agree that people don't understand the technical aspects of ensuring privacy on the web, they do understand the broad nature of the issue (i.e. my information is being shared, sold, or otherwise used for profiling and profit). Maybe some other HN members would like to chime in here, but was anyone working during the late 90s/early 2000s and remember the "cookie scare" that went around? Some departments made it their policy to turn off cookies in the browser by default, other users refused to even go through a shopping cart (requesting instead to phone in orders) because they heard cookies steal their information. That scare is probably why Google is being very proactive here because if users glean the incorrect information, it can be very difficult to convince them otherwise.
      • chc 16y ago
        I don't think it's necessary for a promotional campaign to convince people who don't want your product that other people do. Your comment could point to a flaw in DDG's advertising, or it could just mean you're not their audience.
      • jasonlotito 16y ago
        People want it solved. See the outrage over other privacy issues in the past regarding Google, Facebook, and countless other services. Specifically, see the outrage over the Google Buzz fiasco as an example. Privacy issues are a concern. People aren't interested in the specifics, but they make the assumption that their information is kept private. > There are already solutions for the people who want them (stop sending referer, adblock, etc). There were solutions for Google Buzz at the time. Just because they exist doesn't mean they are implemented in a way that people can use them easily. The problem isn't the tools, it's the ability to use those tools by default. Let me make this clear: people assume their information is secure by default. So, the reason you don't see a bigger uproar over this is because of assumptions people make.
    • dauphin 16y ago
      > I believe this is a serious issue. I disagree with that, but respect for standing for what you believe in.
    • andrewljohnson 16y ago
      Ski masks?
      • epi0Bauqu 16y ago
        What image would you choose for that point? I'm happy to switch it -- I actually already switched it once at the request of someone else.
        • benologist 16y ago
          Jason masks!
        • andrewljohnson 16y ago
          I would suggest you stick to blog posts that make logical arguments, instead of illustrative FUD. And then when people call you out on your FUD, I suggest you don't deny it.
          • epi0Bauqu 16y ago
            Google employees snooping personal data is a real issue that has actually happened. I don't think an illustrative guide in and of itself is a bad way to convey information.
        • joh6nn 16y ago
          someone with binoculars would probably work better. the ski-masks have a connotation of criminal behavior, and while i think this is undesirable behavior, it certainly isn't criminal. as an aside, i don't think i've ever seen someone wearing a ski-mask while skiing, or for that matter, for any legitimate purpose. at what point will we stop calling them "ski masks"?
          • epi0Bauqu 16y ago
            Done.
  • deleted 16y ago
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  • blub 16y ago
    The only sad thing is when people come to the defense of corporations that would chew them up and spit them out in a second if it came to it.
    • axod 16y ago
      Have you worked with Google and had a bad experience? The people I've worked with there have been extremely helpful and refreshingly 'good'. It's very easy to wrongly assume that a big company that makes profit will treat everyone poorly, but that hasn't been my experience at all.
      • blub 16y ago
        But how is it relevant to corporate policies if the people are nice? Google is a corporation that's making money by selling ads and those ads are targeted based on user's data. No matter how good the Google employes, the incentives are perverse and will twist Google's decision in favor of eroding customer privacy even more. See Schmidt's "privacy is dead" quote. Privacy is not dead yet, but the likes of Facebook and Google are trying really hard to kill it because there's more money for them if they do.
        • axod 16y ago
          Privacy is dead. People are posting intimate details of their lives on the net. Sending naked pics around their phones. They killed privacy off themselves because it gives them freedom in other ways.
          • blub 16y ago
            As B.Schneier said, if people post private details, it doesn't mean they don't care about their privacy at all. Even for those people, it's important that they have some control over what they post. For instance they expect their phone pic to be private to them and the person they sent it to, or they expect their Facebook info to be available only to friends and they expect that they can be able to delete it or change it. Even if your premise were correct, we have to ask ourselves if it is desirable for society that privacy is dead and I can't see how the answer would ever be yes.
  • jvdh 16y ago
    You seem to be forgetting that "some hack using APIs" describes a very large amount of YC startups.
    • mfukar 16y ago
      And they all should be judged on their own merit.
      • jvdh 16y ago
        I fully agree. But in the original post the commenter is insinuating that DDG is bad because it is "just a hack using APIs" in stead of a search engine based on the work of a "legion of brilliant programmers". Which results DDG is also using.
  • iamelgringo 16y ago
    And the best marketing Whiny-berg can come up with is half-truths about referer linking. Dude, not cool. This is Hacker News. Please refrain from ad hominem attacks and stick to making intelligent, comments that contribute to the conversation, please.
• joh6nn 16y ago
  Gabriel mentions in this post that https does not fully solve the problem, as referrers are still sent when using google in https mode. Can you confirm whether that's correct?
  • axod 16y ago
    how many search engine results are https?
    • ezalor 16y ago
      2 as far as I know : Google and DDG.
  • othermaciej 16y ago
    I'm pretty sure it's correct. Browsers specifically block sending HTTPS referrers to HTTP sites, but not HTTPS to HTTPS. So using HTTPS mode wouldn't stop sending referrers to HTTPS sites unless Google has a referrer-avoidance mechanism on the results page itself.
• jonmc12 16y ago
  It seems to me that Google used the same kind of consumer-pandering rhetoric when they entered into Net Neutrality confrontation with the carriers. Google branded itself as a company that would lead initiatives to protect consumer access to information. Now, it feels like they have stopped leading this charge. The DuckDuckGo campaign may be a little too consumer-pandering, but I think its perfectly appropriate for how Google has positioned itself to consumers.
• coderdude 16y ago
  Keep fighting the good fight. I've been annoyed by this DDG campaign since they debuted donttrack.us. Google never took the low road in order to gain market share and I don't see why DDG feels the need to spread FUD. Gabriel is incredibly fortunate to have received a warm welcoming and avid following from the developer community, but he is squandering that good fortune by engaging in what is essentially a smear campaign that many of us see right through. He should stick to what makes people want to use a search engine in the first place: Outstanding search results.
  • eps 16y ago
    Not considering the specifics of DDG billboard and the Referer angle, does it not bother you to the slightes that Google does in fact track you all over the Internet? One is basically checking in with Google everytime he visits any site that uses Analytics, embeds a YouTube video or a font from a Font Directory, or a Google-hosted Javascript snippet. Not to mention GMail. Don't know about other people but this bothers the hell out of me. So while I don't think DDG should've focused on the Referer issue, they got the core issue absoluely right. Google does in fact track everyone.
    • coderdude 16y ago
      So is Facebook with their like button, AddThis with their widgets and probably dozens or even hundreds of other services people use. At this point no, I'm not worried about it.
      • jasonlotito 16y ago
        Your not being fair in answering the question. Your answering the specific question and ignoring the intent. You say your not worried because other people track you as well. Do you mean if other people didn't track you, it wouldn't be okay?
        • coderdude 16y ago
          To be perfectly clear: I am not worried because tracking is a part of life on the Web. This isn't going to change. This isn't specific to Google. I do not care about it and I'm not worried about it.
• epi0Bauqu 16y ago
  Thx Matt. At issue here is the search leakage, and I tried to keep this post to that topic. I included the quote from Google because it mentions the Referrer sting aspect; I included the full quote because I didn't want be accused of taking it out context. The part in particular that is relevant is "All search engines and websites use referrer terms as part of the architecture of the web, but we recognize our responsibility to protect the data that users entrust to us and we give them meaningful choices to protect their privacy." It is not a choice that you need to give a user -- you can just do it for them as it should not effect search results. The bottom line of the post is that Google can easily control this particular leaking of personal information, so why not do it? I cannot seem to get a straight answer to that question from you or anyone.
  • grhino 16y ago
    My guess is that a significant portion of business website technical infrastructure has some dependence on being able to access the search terms. Tons of commerce websites would scream if they lost this information. It's probably a complicated web of business relationships and strategies that is the answer for why Google would be reluctant to make such a change. It would cause a lot of upheaval and potentially ill will from companies affected by the change. It would be an extremely bold move by Google to make to prevent search leakage by default. Does Google believe that encrypted.google.com appeases the users who are concerned? Does Google believe that it is only a minority of users that are concerned?
    • jacquesm 16y ago
      I have a gut feeling that google should be on the side of the users in this case, not the websites. Even if the users 'don't care' it's mostly because they are not aware of issues like this. Typically someone that types a query in to a searchbox on www.google.com thinks they are having a conversation with google, not with all of the potential links they'll click after having completed their query. Try explaining to a few non-computer literate people what happens behind the scenes when you do something as simple as a keyword search, most of them will have their eyes solidly glazed over long before you get to the HTTP_REFERER header.
• jacquesm 16y ago
  Can we move past the billboard issue and concentrate on the meat? After all, that may have been a silly move (and silly, not mean, google is large enough to take a friendly poke in the ribs like that without pretending to be seriously hurt) but it does not detract from the point. Google does have a tremendous amount of data on the connected part of the online population and it is a point in DDGs favor that they do not track their visitors. Search leakage really is an issue, even if the majority of the people do not care they probably should and google could easily fix this, so is it going to or not?
  • axod 16y ago
    If they break the way HTTP_REFERER etc work, I would stop using them and find something else. Stop trying to spin this as "something that needs fixing".
    • jacquesm 16y ago
      Stopping search terms leaking to 3rd parties is not 'breaking the HTTP_REFERER', after all doing a POST instead of a GET already does that. The referrer was meant to indicate the source of a click, not to indicate the terms a user used to search for content on the web. Stop using words like 'spin' when you simply disagree with someone.