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Here's my take: Duckduckgo could easily be fully owned and operated by some three letter agency. The NSA is already able to go onsite and tap into the data tha

Here's my take: Duckduckgo could easily be fully owned and operated by some three letter agency. The NSA is already able to go onsite and tap into the data that passes through corporations and they've been doing exactly that for decades (see Room 641A) and they can force corporations to keep silent about it using national security letters. You should already assume that every US based company is sending every scrap of data you give them to the state. With no way to avoid your data from going to the state, what are you left with? Worries over companies collecting, selling, and using your data against you. That's a very real and perfectly valid concern. We know that other search engines are doing those things, so it's best not to use them if we can avoid it. Duckduckgo might be doing those things, which at least gives us a chance, and even if they are it'd be better to hand your data over to several different companies than to give them all to one source (like Google for example) because the more data points any one company has on you the more control they have over you. The worst case scenario would be that Duckduckgo is actually secretly run by Google and the data being collecting from the service is being used to help fill your dossier at Google but if that's the case we're never going to know about it until a whistleblower comes forward. As defeatist as this all sounds, I do believe in taking steps to try to protect your privacy where you can, and I take many steps that go far beyond what most people are willing to, but we also have to accept the reality of the situation we have where our laws and regulations do not protect us, and there is very little we can do to protect ourselves but depend on others to do what they say. That's why I use duckduckgo right now. not because it's trustworthy (we can't know that), but because they might be and that's (sadly) the best option we have at the moment.

robbrown451 5y ago
> The worst case scenario would be that Duckduckgo is actually secretly run by Google and the data being collecting from the service is being used to help fill your dossier at Google but if that's the case we're never going to know about it until a whistleblower comes forward. The problem with this (and most other conspiratorial thinking) is that of course a whistleblower is going to come forward. Are you thinking that every employee of DuckDuckGo that knows this (and many would have to), is paid so highly as to just be quiet? That not one of them thinks, "hey, it would be fun to be famous? It would be fun to expose this thing that is suddenly going to make me a hero to millions? I could write a book about it afterwards and make a ton of money..." And of course, Google would consider this in the first place. Like "maybe this isn't a great idea, because secrets like that are hard to keep? And maybe this could destroy our company and that kind of risk isn't a great idea?"
- pessimizer 5y ago
  This depends on the strange theory that every intelligence agency front or partnership has been discovered by the general public while it was operating, and that the agencies are themselves irrational for ever even trying it. edit: sometimes the arguments against "conspiracy theories" become arguments against the current existence and operation of intelligence agencies. As if all of those employees did nothing all day, and all of those billions are flushed down the toilet.
- autoexec 5y ago
  > Are you thinking that every employee of DuckDuckGo that knows this (and many would have to), is paid so highly as to just be quiet? I'm not thinking that DDG is secretly being run by Google at all, but I'm forced to admit that there's nothing stopping Google from doing it, that they have the money and resources to do it, and that it would benefit them to do it, so however remote, it is a possibility that should be considered right along side the possibility that duckduckgo is exactly what they say they are and nothing more. We have no evidence of either being true after all and can only speculate. If we're asking ourselves that the risks of using DDG are, we have to at least consider what the worst case scenarios might be. So while I consider the possibility that DDG is being run by google to be possible, but highly unlikely, just as a thought experiment, why would anyone but a very small number of Google employees working at DDG need to know it was run by google and sending data back home? Any other DDG employees don't need to be told. If google employees ran the servers, DDG employees would be free to work on the front end and day to day stuff entirely unaware. > The problem with this (and most other conspiratorial thinking) is that of course a whistleblower is going to come forward. This is not a guarantee at all. Edward Snowden came forward, but only after many many years and not one of his co-workers in the same role did. DuPont knowingly poisoned people for decades and not a single whistleblower ever came forward. Johnson & Johnson knew that their product (which we were covering infants with) caused cancer but there was no whistleblower to break the story to the public. Over and over and over again we only learn about horrific acts committed against the public by corporations after decades of gathering scientific data and court actions specifically because people were "paid so highly as to just be quiet". It's a fact that whistleblowers are the rare exception and not the rule. The idea that companies are so afraid of whistleblowers or their reputation that they wouldn't do evil things is demonstrably false as we've seen example after example of companies who knowingly put profit over human life time and time again and even when there were whistleblowers the companies often faced zero meaningful consequences beyond paying back a small percentage of the profits they made while building a body count. Whistleblowers are awesome, and they remain a very import check against bad actors, but do not count on them always being there to save you and don't expect that fear of them will prevent a company from committing acts far far worse than logging your internet searches.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
DuckDuckGo was never meant to defeat spying by three-letter-agencies. It's meant to protect us from tracking by advertisers. I don't think it makes any sense for a three-letter-agency to run it. They can just NSL duckduckgo. They obey the law, as this news item shows clearly.
- autoexec 5y ago
  I agree. Can't dismiss the possibility since anything advertising itself as a service to protect your privacy could make a very nice honeypot for the state, but there's a market for pro-privacy services that private companies are happy to serve and nothing stopping the state from just taking whatever that want from them anyway.
diputsmonro 5y ago
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Panopticon
- stereoradonc 5y ago
  How I stopped loving panoticon and ended up marrying it.
  - autoexec 5y ago
    Love it or hate it, the Panopticon is here and we're stuck under it's watchful eye until laws and regulations catch up. In the meantime, just do your best to protect your privacy. DDG has been my search engine for many many years. I recommend it. I still can't fault anyone who questions how much we can trust them. Simply put, right now we can't. I still need to search the internet though.
stereoradonc 5y ago
I love conspiracy theories!
- autoexec 5y ago
  They can be fun, but I wish we had actual oversight and regulations to protect us so that we didn't have to think about what kinds of shadowy things companies might be doing with our data. If someone is worried about DDG, I can't blame them. They have every reason to worry, because we have no protections. Personally, while I sadly can't discount the possibility, I'm pretty sure DDG isn't run by google or the NSA, and they've been my search engine of choice for a very long time.

robbrown451 5y ago

> The worst case scenario would be that Duckduckgo is actually secretly run by Google and the data being collecting from the service is being used to help fill your dossier at Google but if that's the case we're never going to know about it until a whistleblower comes forward. The problem with this (and most other conspiratorial thinking) is that of course a whistleblower is going to come forward. Are you thinking that every employee of DuckDuckGo that knows this (and many would have to), is paid so highly as to just be quiet? That not one of them thinks, "hey, it would be fun to be famous? It would be fun to expose this thing that is suddenly going to make me a hero to millions? I could write a book about it afterwards and make a ton of money..." And of course, Google would consider this in the first place. Like "maybe this isn't a great idea, because secrets like that are hard to keep? And maybe this could destroy our company and that kind of risk isn't a great idea?"

pessimizer 5y ago
This depends on the strange theory that every intelligence agency front or partnership has been discovered by the general public while it was operating, and that the agencies are themselves irrational for ever even trying it. edit: sometimes the arguments against "conspiracy theories" become arguments against the current existence and operation of intelligence agencies. As if all of those employees did nothing all day, and all of those billions are flushed down the toilet.
autoexec 5y ago
> Are you thinking that every employee of DuckDuckGo that knows this (and many would have to), is paid so highly as to just be quiet? I'm not thinking that DDG is secretly being run by Google at all, but I'm forced to admit that there's nothing stopping Google from doing it, that they have the money and resources to do it, and that it would benefit them to do it, so however remote, it is a possibility that should be considered right along side the possibility that duckduckgo is exactly what they say they are and nothing more. We have no evidence of either being true after all and can only speculate. If we're asking ourselves that the risks of using DDG are, we have to at least consider what the worst case scenarios might be. So while I consider the possibility that DDG is being run by google to be possible, but highly unlikely, just as a thought experiment, why would anyone but a very small number of Google employees working at DDG need to know it was run by google and sending data back home? Any other DDG employees don't need to be told. If google employees ran the servers, DDG employees would be free to work on the front end and day to day stuff entirely unaware. > The problem with this (and most other conspiratorial thinking) is that of course a whistleblower is going to come forward. This is not a guarantee at all. Edward Snowden came forward, but only after many many years and not one of his co-workers in the same role did. DuPont knowingly poisoned people for decades and not a single whistleblower ever came forward. Johnson & Johnson knew that their product (which we were covering infants with) caused cancer but there was no whistleblower to break the story to the public. Over and over and over again we only learn about horrific acts committed against the public by corporations after decades of gathering scientific data and court actions specifically because people were "paid so highly as to just be quiet". It's a fact that whistleblowers are the rare exception and not the rule. The idea that companies are so afraid of whistleblowers or their reputation that they wouldn't do evil things is demonstrably false as we've seen example after example of companies who knowingly put profit over human life time and time again and even when there were whistleblowers the companies often faced zero meaningful consequences beyond paying back a small percentage of the profits they made while building a body count. Whistleblowers are awesome, and they remain a very import check against bad actors, but do not count on them always being there to save you and don't expect that fear of them will prevent a company from committing acts far far worse than logging your internet searches.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

DuckDuckGo was never meant to defeat spying by three-letter-agencies. It's meant to protect us from tracking by advertisers. I don't think it makes any sense for a three-letter-agency to run it. They can just NSL duckduckgo. They obey the law, as this news item shows clearly.

autoexec 5y ago
I agree. Can't dismiss the possibility since anything advertising itself as a service to protect your privacy could make a very nice honeypot for the state, but there's a market for pro-privacy services that private companies are happy to serve and nothing stopping the state from just taking whatever that want from them anyway.

diputsmonro 5y ago

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Panopticon

stereoradonc 5y ago
How I stopped loving panoticon and ended up marrying it.
- autoexec 5y ago
  Love it or hate it, the Panopticon is here and we're stuck under it's watchful eye until laws and regulations catch up. In the meantime, just do your best to protect your privacy. DDG has been my search engine for many many years. I recommend it. I still can't fault anyone who questions how much we can trust them. Simply put, right now we can't. I still need to search the internet though.

stereoradonc 5y ago

I love conspiracy theories!

autoexec 5y ago
They can be fun, but I wish we had actual oversight and regulations to protect us so that we didn't have to think about what kinds of shadowy things companies might be doing with our data. If someone is worried about DDG, I can't blame them. They have every reason to worry, because we have no protections. Personally, while I sadly can't discount the possibility, I'm pretty sure DDG isn't run by google or the NSA, and they've been my search engine of choice for a very long time.