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Interesting example. And I can replicate it pretty much exactly as you describe. Two things comes to mind — 1. Would you consider this an “edge case”? Searchi

Interesting example. And I can replicate it pretty much exactly as you describe. Two things comes to mind — 1. Would you consider this an “edge case”? Searching for things you want to buy in one language, but researching programming topics in another language? 2. Is the difference in experiences not essentially the result of Google’s data collection practices? Both specifically data about you and your search patterns and data in aggregate that DDG (presumably) does not collect on purpose.

vlovich123 6y ago
IP address at a minimum gives you a coarse location anyway so this isn’t even DDG going out of their way to collect personalization information to provide a better result. Alternatively maybe they view any personalization data as a slippery slope and avoid it wholesale.
- cdubzzz 6y ago
  According to DDG's Privacy page[0] -- "We also save searches, but again, not in a personally identifiable way, as we do not store IP addresses or unique User agent strings. We use aggregate, non-personal search data to improve things like misspellings." So it sounds like they use the slippery slope argument. [0] https://duckduckgo.com/privacy https://duckduckgo.com/privacy
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  DDG does have a switch to enable location aware search (coarse at the level of country).
magicalhippo 6y ago
I would consider this a typical case. There are several classes of things where I would primarily want local results for. If I'm searching for a grocery store ("matbutikk") I want grocery stores near me, not some instagram account named "Matbutikk" or some random grocery store in Spain. Similarly there are several classes of things where I want international results, typically technical stuff. I think DDG could improve a lot without any privacy issues. Since localized results are often decent enough, the main issue seems to be that it needs to prioritize local results automatically. Are you search for a common product brand name, or using words in the primary language where you are from (geo-ip)? Well then prioritize localized results.
- cdubzzz 6y ago
  Yeah, I think that is a fair assessment. What I meant by "edge case" though was not necessarily the search term itself. It was selecting "Norway" localization for one search, and then deselecting for another. Of course I have no real insight here, but I would bet the large majority of people who toggle that option intend to keep it for all searches as opposed to just some. E.g. searching for "matbutikk" with the Norway localization on DDG gives me different results (no Instagram account at least, but I can't really judge outside of that, hah).

vlovich123 6y ago

IP address at a minimum gives you a coarse location anyway so this isn’t even DDG going out of their way to collect personalization information to provide a better result. Alternatively maybe they view any personalization data as a slippery slope and avoid it wholesale.

cdubzzz 6y ago
According to DDG's Privacy page[0] -- "We also save searches, but again, not in a personally identifiable way, as we do not store IP addresses or unique User agent strings. We use aggregate, non-personal search data to improve things like misspellings." So it sounds like they use the slippery slope argument. [0] https://duckduckgo.com/privacy https://duckduckgo.com/privacy
marcosdumay 6y ago
DDG does have a switch to enable location aware search (coarse at the level of country).

magicalhippo 6y ago

I would consider this a typical case. There are several classes of things where I would primarily want local results for. If I'm searching for a grocery store ("matbutikk") I want grocery stores near me, not some instagram account named "Matbutikk" or some random grocery store in Spain. Similarly there are several classes of things where I want international results, typically technical stuff. I think DDG could improve a lot without any privacy issues. Since localized results are often decent enough, the main issue seems to be that it needs to prioritize local results automatically. Are you search for a common product brand name, or using words in the primary language where you are from (geo-ip)? Well then prioritize localized results.

cdubzzz 6y ago
Yeah, I think that is a fair assessment. What I meant by "edge case" though was not necessarily the search term itself. It was selecting "Norway" localization for one search, and then deselecting for another. Of course I have no real insight here, but I would bet the large majority of people who toggle that option intend to keep it for all searches as opposed to just some. E.g. searching for "matbutikk" with the Norway localization on DDG gives me different results (no Instagram account at least, but I can't really judge outside of that, hah).