21 ms·

Bing contract prohibits DuckDuckGo from completely blocking Microsoft tracking

462 points by etamponi 4y ago

yegg 4y ago
This title is very misleading (and really should be changed). This is not about search. To be clear, when you load our search results, you are completely anonymous, including ads. For ads, we actually worked with Microsoft to make ad clicks privacy protected as well. From our public ads page, "Microsoft Advertising does not associate your ad-click behavior with a user profile." This page is linked to next to every Microsoft ad that is served on our search engine (duckduckgo.com). https://help.duckduckgo.com/company/ads-by-microsoft-on-duckduckgo-private-search/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/company/ads-by-microsoft-on-duck.... In all our browsing apps (iOS/Android/Mac) we also block third-party cookies, including those from Microsoft-owned properties like LinkedIn and Bing. That is, the privacy thing most people talk about on the web (blocking 3rd party cookies) applies here to MSFT. We also have a lot of other web protections that also apply to MSFT-owned properties as well, e.g., GPC, first-party cookie expiration, fingerprinting protection, referrer header trimming, cookie consent handling, fire button data clearing, etc. This is just about non-DuckDuckGo and non-Microsoft sites in our browsers, where our search syndication agreement currently prevents us from stopping Microsoft-owned scripts from loading, though we can still apply our browser's protections post-load (like 3rd party cookie blocking and others mentioned above, and do). We've also been tirelessly working behind the scenes to change this limited restriction. I also understand this is confusing because it is a search syndication contract that is preventing us from doing a non-search thing. That's because our product is a bundle of multiple privacy protections, and this is a distribution requirement imposed on us as part of the search syndication agreement. Our syndication agreement also has broad confidentially provisions and the requirement documents themselves are explicitly marked confidential. Taking a step back, I know our product is not perfect and will never be. We face many constraints: platform constraints, contractual constraints (like in this case), breakage constraints, and the evolving tracking arms race. Holistically though I believe it is the best thing out there for mainstream users who want simple privacy protection without breaking things, and that is our product vision. Overall our app is multi-pronged privacy protection in one package (private search, web protection, HTTPS upgrading, email protection, app tracking protection for Android, and more to come), being careful (and putting in a lot of effort) to not break things while still offering protections -- an "easy button" for privacy. And we constantly work to improve its capabilities and will continue to do so, including in this case. For example, we've recently been adding bespoke third-party protections for Google and Facebook, like Google AMP/Topics/FLEDGE protection and Facebook embedded content protection.
- appleflaxen 4y ago
  I find this reply really disingenuous. Your brand is privacy, and you have betrayed your philosophical principles. Personally: you will never regain my trust. I'm sorry this happened.
- dontbenebby 4y ago
  > This title is very misleading (and really should be changed). What do you think the title should be yegg?
  - yegg 4y ago
    It is hard to title because people assume this is about search (when it's not, so that should be in there), and also people assume trackers get a free pass (when they do not, e.g., 3rd party cookies blocked, etc.) Maybe something like: Microsoft contractually prevents DuckDuckGo's browser from stopping Microsoft scripts from loading on 3rd party sites (FYI: not search related)
    - KoftaBob 4y ago
      What's an example of a Microsoft script loading on a 3rd party site, to help wrap my head around this?
      - yegg 4y ago
        The original example was Workplace.com embedding a LinkedIn script.
        KoftaBob 4y ago
        Ah, I see! I think for transparency sake, it could be helpful to list the Microsoft trackers that were essentially white listed and therefore allowed to load on a particular site, right under the list of trackers that were blocked.
      - boomboomsubban 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sylware 4y ago
- yegg 4y ago
  This has nothing to do with search. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490603. And that's not actually how we make our results either -- our results are actually made anonymously from a variety of sources. In particular, when people search, we believe they’re really looking for answers, as opposed to just links. For many categories of searches (restaurants, lyrics, weather, etc.), there is usually a specialized search engine (e.g., Tripadvisor), content site (e.g., Musixmatch), or dedicated source (e.g., DarkSky) that does a better job of actually answering searches than a general search engine can with just links. Our long-term goal has been for over a decade to get you Instant Answers from these best sources. Most of our search result pages now feature one or more Instant Answers. To deliver Instant Answers on specific topics, DuckDuckGo leverages many sources, including specialized sources like Sportradar and crowd-sourced sites like Wikipedia. We also maintain our own crawler (DuckDuckBot) and many indexes to support our results. Of course, we have more traditional links in our search results too, which we do largely source from Bing, but that's just part of the page. Our focus is synthesizing all these sources to create a superior search experience, and there is a lot of technology behind it. For example, local searches appear on most mobile searches, and none of that is coming from Bing.
  - x32n23nr 4y ago
    Come on Gabriel! Yes people search for weather, lyrics, sport scores and local results, but you do not have a web search engine without being able to search the web. Saying "Of course, we have more traditional links in our search results too, which we do largely source from Bing, but that's just part of the page" is disingenuous.
    - yegg 4y ago
      No, it's really not. What people don't realize about search is things get clicked on in an exponential fashion, with each piece down the page being engaged with about half as much, so nearer to the bottom of the visible page, 100x less. Since instant answers are often on top, the % of engagement on non-traditional links is much lower than one would otherwise think. And as mobile searches are now the majority, local results (including maps, places listings, etc.) occur on a large % of searches. Same for Wikipedia content. And neither of those are sourced by Bing, along with dozens of other popular Instant Answers driven by many different indexes. Put another way, we have a very large search codebase and overall engineering team, and all of this technology is doing something, and we believe something good!
zerr 4y ago
Ecosia is a bing front-end as well. I wonder if they a similar deal.
ta8645 4y ago
DDG is starting to get bad press a fair bit these days. There was also a sizeable backlash against their weird Ukraine-war virtue signalling. Seems they're not as single-mindedly focused on privacy for search users, as their initial mission statement suggested.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- yegg 4y ago
  Our product vision is "Privacy, simplified." Since 2018 we've been more than search. Our app puts multi-pronged privacy protection in one package (private search, web protection, HTTPS upgrading, email protection, app tracking protection for Android, etc.), with a lot of effort to not break things while still offering strong protection -- an "easy button" for privacy if you will.
  - pwned1 4y ago
    I've been a DDG user since your early days (you mailed me some DDG stickers when they were free). I was using DDG on every device and setting all of my family members to use the same on their devices. You lost me when you started telling us that you were going to start deciding what is unacceptable "russian propaganda" without any transparency into what that means or who will be deciding. Completely antithetical to your anti-bubble mission. It pains me to not be a cheerleader for you anymore, but that was such a betrayal that I can't get past it.
    - yegg 4y ago
      That is not what we are doing. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 On the search filter bubble, that is very still much what we do. To be clear, unlike some other search engines, we don’t alter search results based on someone’s previous search history. In fact, since we don’t track our users we don’t have access to search histories at all. Those other search engines show you results based on a data profile about you and your online activity (including your search history), and so can be slanted towards what they think you will click on the most based on this profiling. This effect is commonly known as the search filter bubble, but using DuckDuckGo can help you escape it. This does not mean, however, our search results are generally “unfiltered” because, for every search you make online, a search engine’s job is to filter millions of possible results down to a ranked order of just a handful.
dontbenebby 4y ago
[flagged]
- tombot 4y ago
  Just to be clear, you are annoyed because DuckDuckGo offered to pay for your interview(!) but you didn’t like the payment processor they chose to reimburse you with?
  - dontbenebby 4y ago
    Do you really want me to respond to this question? I'll set aside a whole hour, but I think it'd be rude to list off all the reasons I'm annoyed I didn't get the role I applied for, or pointed at something a better fit for my CV. The larger issue is I applied there after having my career obstructed for over a decade because I agree with the fouders. I've met several of their employees -- I told many people offline some of them were incredibly skilled in their roles. That meta level pattern of being obstructed, trying to help others who have that same issue, then being thrust further into precarity really grinds my gears. Feel free to ask another question like the above, and I'll reply in even more detail. Your move. - Greg.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
tiahura 4y ago
DDG seems to be following the path of Mozilla.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
buzzwords 4y ago
So the first question I have is "does tracking help provide better search results?" The second question is, "Can you run a profitable search engine without target ad revenues?"
- yegg 4y ago
  This actually has nothing to do with search. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490603 for a detailed explanation.
elforce002 4y ago
DDG lost me when they said they were going to start "curating" search responses. Give me all unadulterated results with out any bias and let me decide what to do with it.
- yegg 4y ago
  That's actually not what we are doing -- see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 for an explanation I just posted.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- signatoremo 4y ago
  What do “unadulterated results” mean? How should DDG return them to you, and in which order, if there are a million results for your query?
ErrrNoMate 4y ago
Browsers are walled gardens, it's better not to use this one, especially as the company deals with other things which involve Microsoft. Any link to them means the privacy sell is a bit sketchy to me.
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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falcolas 4y ago
Just looking at the original title, I knew this was going to be a twitter post by a Brave employee posting either hearsay, or something taken out of context. Private browsing is a small niche, and Brave does their best to drive competitors at every turn, and not by being obviously better at it. Kinda scummy, if I’m honest.
- drfuzzy89 4y ago
  Agreed. All this post did for me is make me think even less of Brave. It hasn't really changed my opinion of DDG. For the majority of DDG users (like me) who only use it for search, this changes nothing. All it does is make the Brave folks look like mudslingers.
  - smotched 4y ago
    So you're okay with a company promising you privacy (core of their marketing) is in fact willing to instantly change for a Microsoft paycheck? What you're actually upset about is that someone pointed out their hypocrisy?
    - drfuzzy89 4y ago
      I was promised tracking-free web searches, which has not been violated, though the Brave employee who tweeted this clearly meant to imply that it was. I don't use their web browser and I don't care to. But the original tweet is out of context and deliberately misleading and was posted by a competitor to DDG and so was clearly done in bad faith. I don't think it's great that Microsoft is exempt from some restrictions in the DDG browser, but this tweet is also referencing a post by a DDG employee freely disclosing the issue and stating that they're working to improve it. In my opinion, this sort of mudslinging makes the folks at Brave look petty while not really changing my opinion of DDG very much. I also think this is a case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Feel free to continue to tell me how I feel about things, though, internet stranger. You're clearly much more in tune with my opinions than I am.
- pcmaffey 4y ago
rhim 4y ago
I did not know this privacy comparison between browsers. It was shared under the tweet: https://privacytests.org/android.html https://privacytests.org/android.html
dutchblacksmith 4y ago
Well Yegg, I'll keep on using DDG. As I have done for years.
lapcat 4y ago
DuckDuckGo feels like just a front for Microsoft at this point. I once looked into buying search ads on DuckDuckGo, only to discover to my horror that DDG didn't have its own ad business. DDG is entirely reliant on Microsoft's advertising system. You have to sign up for a Microsoft account to even put ads on DDG! And it's difficult — maybe impossible IIRC? — to specifically target DDG in those ads, without also targeting other MS properties. Until DuckDuckGo separates itself from Microsoft and becomes truly independent, especially in its business model, you have to question why DDG even exists. DDG was founded 14 years ago. I can understand initially bootstrapping on MS ads, but what's the excuse now? How about separating yourself from Microsoft first, before making a web browser that gives special exemptions to Microsoft?
- Quarrelsome 4y ago
  > you have to question why DDG even exists. Its been useful for me for 14 years so idk about that.
- rvz 4y ago
  Yes. It's quite known for years and very unsurprising to be honest. [0] [1] [2] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30703172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30703172 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27399017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27399017 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25839873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25839873
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > very unsurprising to be honest How is it unsurprising? Where on https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/ or https://duckduckgo.com/about https://duckduckgo.com/about do they mention Microsoft or Bing? In fact they go out of their way to mention Google without ever mentioning Microsoft: "Is DuckDuckGo owned by Google? No, we are not and have never been owned by Google. We have been an independent company since our founding in 2008 and, unlike some other search engines, we don’t rely on Google’s results for any of our search results."
    - 4y ago
torrentialtom 4y ago
I dropped DDG back in March when Weinberg disclosed that they were engaging in censorship and injecting bias into search results related to the Ukraine/Russia conflict. Now that we see he's sold his soul to MS for $$$, this further confirms my decision. I'm using Brave as my search engine now.
maverick74 4y ago
@yegg Well... how about stopping all this "Bing on the background" thing and do like Brave search and Qwant (which i'm testing as to switch away from ddg for a few months now - because of you relying in Bing) and start believing a bit more on your own index??? Why not start being a "real" search engine??? I would say it's about time!!! (If brave and qwant can do it, so can you - man... even Gigablast does it!!!)
- yegg 4y ago
  First, it is misleading to say our results just come from Bing. That's far from the case in actuality. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490994 for a more detailed explanation on that. On other search engines, they all rely somewhat on either Google's or Bing's web crawling: Qwant, Bing and Brave, Google (and Bing for images). This is easy to see as a webmaster since you don't see their crawlers much (if at all). Only Google and Bing are doing full scale web crawls. However, search is a lot more than traditional web links -- in fact it is about half now from instant answers that can come from dozens of sources and indexes (which the above comment gets into).
  - mda 4y ago
    Care to give some numbers instead of handwaving? What percentage of the queries are answered from bing index? Or even better what percentage of queries that resulted in an ad click were powered by Bing? A ballpark estimate is fine.
  - maverick74 4y ago
    Yes, i've read most of the comments... But what i would REALLY like to see on DDG (beside it becoming fully OpenSource - someday) was having it taking the step of not relying on Bing. That is a terrible shadow over you. You should embrace the momentum you're having and step up and do your own thing. Your own index. Yes, you have to build/rely on others such as wikipedia... naturally But please... NOT on big tech!!! Or one day, someone else will get there and eat your lunch (Honestly, Qwant is a great alternative that apparently does not rely on big tech) I maybe wrong, but i think this is what everyone one wishes from DDG!!! I believe everyone wants DDG free from Big Tech (but everyone is free to correct me).
verisimi 4y ago
I'm enjoying presearch! https://www.presearch.org/ https://www.presearch.org/ you can dive into google/ddg/etc's searches on the left, but its pretty decent!
Imnimo 4y ago
So if I understand correctly, the problem is that in order to license its search index, MS requires a concession from DDG on its browser. From a customer's standpoint, these are two separate products - you can use DDG search and not use DDG's browser, or vice versa. It's only because they're made by the same company that MS has the leverage to demand this carve-out. It seems like the answer for customers is to just not use a browser made by DDG, thereby removing that leverage.
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
Sorry, if your software disallows blocking MS trackers you are in no way orienting yourself towards privacy.
x32n23nr 4y ago
Original audit thread: https://twitter.com/thezedwards/status/1528808759027331072 https://twitter.com/thezedwards/status/1528808759027331072
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> Microsoft and DuckDuckGo have partnered Those are the saddest 5 words I have read all week. Et tu, Brute? "Partnered" is not a word one uses in connection with convicted criminal monopolists with a history of bribery, intimidation and fraud. I choose my words carefully - Microsoft are gangsters who would sell their own grandmothers for beer money. For DuckDuckGo to be associated with them is a disgrace.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  By all means, spray perfume around, but you can't hide the stench of the truth.
BilalBudhani 4y ago
Sadly this remind me of the golden phrase > if you are not paying for the product then you are the product I have switched to Kagi [0] a paid search engine (free in beta) as my default search engine and so far it has been working out great. [0] https://www.kagi.com https://www.kagi.com
- Mo3 4y ago
  Same here, very happy with Kagi and have no problem paying for the product instead of becoming the product.
- libraryatnight 4y ago
  I'll pile on this Kagi recommendation - going on a few months I've used it exclusively. It has bangs like DDG but I find I use them less. Kagi's results are generally quite good.
LeoPanthera 4y ago
Linked to in the Twitter thread was this site which I've never heard of, but is very interesting: https://privacytests.org https://privacytests.org
vimacs2 4y ago
Well, the writing was on the wall as soon as they started blocking "Russian misinformation" that DDG are trying to ape the general practices of other search engines. Now, even the privacy itself is a secondary concern. Thankfully, I've already switched to Brave search last month and will likely eventually set up a SearX instance for a long term solution free of control by a corporation.
darksidespoon 4y ago
Sadly DDG can no longer be trusted for being shady. A better option would have been to let the community decide. You could have easily posted something to the effect of "One of the search engines wants us to sign an NDA and force us to allow more tracking than we are comfortable with" Then let the community decide if we wanted a branded browser that is less secure or even if enough folks didn't care that you could still justify dev cycles on the browser. No you took the shady approach and that is sad.
Astd 4y ago
The Beta does.
Astd 4y ago
The Beta does the job blocking.
Astd 4y ago
Adobe is collecting data without user authentication on Android phones
brandonjhgoogle 4y ago
I use Firefox with the following add-ons: uBlock Origin, Smart Referer, Resist Fingerprinting, Decentraleyes, Cookie AutoDelete. Microsoft aside, does the DuckDuckGo browser provide any privacy benefits over this setup? What keeps DDG users from switching to Firefox?
Astd 4y ago
DDG blocking Google to read encrypted e-mail from the application Eboks.

462 points by etamponi 4y ago

yegg 4y ago

This title is very misleading (and really should be changed). This is not about search. To be clear, when you load our search results, you are completely anonymous, including ads. For ads, we actually worked with Microsoft to make ad clicks privacy protected as well. From our public ads page, "Microsoft Advertising does not associate your ad-click behavior with a user profile." This page is linked to next to every Microsoft ad that is served on our search engine (duckduckgo.com). https://help.duckduckgo.com/company/ads-by-microsoft-on-duckduckgo-private-search/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/company/ads-by-microsoft-on-duck.... In all our browsing apps (iOS/Android/Mac) we also block third-party cookies, including those from Microsoft-owned properties like LinkedIn and Bing. That is, the privacy thing most people talk about on the web (blocking 3rd party cookies) applies here to MSFT. We also have a lot of other web protections that also apply to MSFT-owned properties as well, e.g., GPC, first-party cookie expiration, fingerprinting protection, referrer header trimming, cookie consent handling, fire button data clearing, etc. This is just about non-DuckDuckGo and non-Microsoft sites in our browsers, where our search syndication agreement currently prevents us from stopping Microsoft-owned scripts from loading, though we can still apply our browser's protections post-load (like 3rd party cookie blocking and others mentioned above, and do). We've also been tirelessly working behind the scenes to change this limited restriction. I also understand this is confusing because it is a search syndication contract that is preventing us from doing a non-search thing. That's because our product is a bundle of multiple privacy protections, and this is a distribution requirement imposed on us as part of the search syndication agreement. Our syndication agreement also has broad confidentially provisions and the requirement documents themselves are explicitly marked confidential. Taking a step back, I know our product is not perfect and will never be. We face many constraints: platform constraints, contractual constraints (like in this case), breakage constraints, and the evolving tracking arms race. Holistically though I believe it is the best thing out there for mainstream users who want simple privacy protection without breaking things, and that is our product vision. Overall our app is multi-pronged privacy protection in one package (private search, web protection, HTTPS upgrading, email protection, app tracking protection for Android, and more to come), being careful (and putting in a lot of effort) to not break things while still offering protections -- an "easy button" for privacy. And we constantly work to improve its capabilities and will continue to do so, including in this case. For example, we've recently been adding bespoke third-party protections for Google and Facebook, like Google AMP/Topics/FLEDGE protection and Facebook embedded content protection.

appleflaxen 4y ago
I find this reply really disingenuous. Your brand is privacy, and you have betrayed your philosophical principles. Personally: you will never regain my trust. I'm sorry this happened.
dontbenebby 4y ago
> This title is very misleading (and really should be changed). What do you think the title should be yegg?
- yegg 4y ago
  It is hard to title because people assume this is about search (when it's not, so that should be in there), and also people assume trackers get a free pass (when they do not, e.g., 3rd party cookies blocked, etc.) Maybe something like: Microsoft contractually prevents DuckDuckGo's browser from stopping Microsoft scripts from loading on 3rd party sites (FYI: not search related)
  - KoftaBob 4y ago
    What's an example of a Microsoft script loading on a 3rd party site, to help wrap my head around this?
    - yegg 4y ago
      The original example was Workplace.com embedding a LinkedIn script.
      - KoftaBob 4y ago
        Ah, I see! I think for transparency sake, it could be helpful to list the Microsoft trackers that were essentially white listed and therefore allowed to load on a particular site, right under the list of trackers that were blocked.
    - boomboomsubban 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sylware 4y ago

yegg 4y ago
This has nothing to do with search. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490603. And that's not actually how we make our results either -- our results are actually made anonymously from a variety of sources. In particular, when people search, we believe they’re really looking for answers, as opposed to just links. For many categories of searches (restaurants, lyrics, weather, etc.), there is usually a specialized search engine (e.g., Tripadvisor), content site (e.g., Musixmatch), or dedicated source (e.g., DarkSky) that does a better job of actually answering searches than a general search engine can with just links. Our long-term goal has been for over a decade to get you Instant Answers from these best sources. Most of our search result pages now feature one or more Instant Answers. To deliver Instant Answers on specific topics, DuckDuckGo leverages many sources, including specialized sources like Sportradar and crowd-sourced sites like Wikipedia. We also maintain our own crawler (DuckDuckBot) and many indexes to support our results. Of course, we have more traditional links in our search results too, which we do largely source from Bing, but that's just part of the page. Our focus is synthesizing all these sources to create a superior search experience, and there is a lot of technology behind it. For example, local searches appear on most mobile searches, and none of that is coming from Bing.
- x32n23nr 4y ago
  Come on Gabriel! Yes people search for weather, lyrics, sport scores and local results, but you do not have a web search engine without being able to search the web. Saying "Of course, we have more traditional links in our search results too, which we do largely source from Bing, but that's just part of the page" is disingenuous.
  - yegg 4y ago
    No, it's really not. What people don't realize about search is things get clicked on in an exponential fashion, with each piece down the page being engaged with about half as much, so nearer to the bottom of the visible page, 100x less. Since instant answers are often on top, the % of engagement on non-traditional links is much lower than one would otherwise think. And as mobile searches are now the majority, local results (including maps, places listings, etc.) occur on a large % of searches. Same for Wikipedia content. And neither of those are sourced by Bing, along with dozens of other popular Instant Answers driven by many different indexes. Put another way, we have a very large search codebase and overall engineering team, and all of this technology is doing something, and we believe something good!

zerr 4y ago

Ecosia is a bing front-end as well. I wonder if they a similar deal.

ta8645 4y ago

DDG is starting to get bad press a fair bit these days. There was also a sizeable backlash against their weird Ukraine-war virtue signalling. Seems they're not as single-mindedly focused on privacy for search users, as their initial mission statement suggested.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yegg 4y ago
Our product vision is "Privacy, simplified." Since 2018 we've been more than search. Our app puts multi-pronged privacy protection in one package (private search, web protection, HTTPS upgrading, email protection, app tracking protection for Android, etc.), with a lot of effort to not break things while still offering strong protection -- an "easy button" for privacy if you will.
- pwned1 4y ago
  I've been a DDG user since your early days (you mailed me some DDG stickers when they were free). I was using DDG on every device and setting all of my family members to use the same on their devices. You lost me when you started telling us that you were going to start deciding what is unacceptable "russian propaganda" without any transparency into what that means or who will be deciding. Completely antithetical to your anti-bubble mission. It pains me to not be a cheerleader for you anymore, but that was such a betrayal that I can't get past it.
  - yegg 4y ago
    That is not what we are doing. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 On the search filter bubble, that is very still much what we do. To be clear, unlike some other search engines, we don’t alter search results based on someone’s previous search history. In fact, since we don’t track our users we don’t have access to search histories at all. Those other search engines show you results based on a data profile about you and your online activity (including your search history), and so can be slanted towards what they think you will click on the most based on this profiling. This effect is commonly known as the search filter bubble, but using DuckDuckGo can help you escape it. This does not mean, however, our search results are generally “unfiltered” because, for every search you make online, a search engine’s job is to filter millions of possible results down to a ranked order of just a handful.

dontbenebby 4y ago

[flagged]

tombot 4y ago
Just to be clear, you are annoyed because DuckDuckGo offered to pay for your interview(!) but you didn’t like the payment processor they chose to reimburse you with?
- dontbenebby 4y ago
  Do you really want me to respond to this question? I'll set aside a whole hour, but I think it'd be rude to list off all the reasons I'm annoyed I didn't get the role I applied for, or pointed at something a better fit for my CV. The larger issue is I applied there after having my career obstructed for over a decade because I agree with the fouders. I've met several of their employees -- I told many people offline some of them were incredibly skilled in their roles. That meta level pattern of being obstructed, trying to help others who have that same issue, then being thrust further into precarity really grinds my gears. Feel free to ask another question like the above, and I'll reply in even more detail. Your move. - Greg.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

tiahura 4y ago

DDG seems to be following the path of Mozilla.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

buzzwords 4y ago

So the first question I have is "does tracking help provide better search results?" The second question is, "Can you run a profitable search engine without target ad revenues?"

yegg 4y ago
This actually has nothing to do with search. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490603 for a detailed explanation.

elforce002 4y ago

DDG lost me when they said they were going to start "curating" search responses. Give me all unadulterated results with out any bias and let me decide what to do with it.

yegg 4y ago
That's actually not what we are doing -- see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 for an explanation I just posted.
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signatoremo 4y ago
What do “unadulterated results” mean? How should DDG return them to you, and in which order, if there are a million results for your query?

ErrrNoMate 4y ago

Browsers are walled gardens, it's better not to use this one, especially as the company deals with other things which involve Microsoft. Any link to them means the privacy sell is a bit sketchy to me.

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falcolas 4y ago

Just looking at the original title, I knew this was going to be a twitter post by a Brave employee posting either hearsay, or something taken out of context. Private browsing is a small niche, and Brave does their best to drive competitors at every turn, and not by being obviously better at it. Kinda scummy, if I’m honest.

drfuzzy89 4y ago
Agreed. All this post did for me is make me think even less of Brave. It hasn't really changed my opinion of DDG. For the majority of DDG users (like me) who only use it for search, this changes nothing. All it does is make the Brave folks look like mudslingers.
- smotched 4y ago
  So you're okay with a company promising you privacy (core of their marketing) is in fact willing to instantly change for a Microsoft paycheck? What you're actually upset about is that someone pointed out their hypocrisy?
  - drfuzzy89 4y ago
    I was promised tracking-free web searches, which has not been violated, though the Brave employee who tweeted this clearly meant to imply that it was. I don't use their web browser and I don't care to. But the original tweet is out of context and deliberately misleading and was posted by a competitor to DDG and so was clearly done in bad faith. I don't think it's great that Microsoft is exempt from some restrictions in the DDG browser, but this tweet is also referencing a post by a DDG employee freely disclosing the issue and stating that they're working to improve it. In my opinion, this sort of mudslinging makes the folks at Brave look petty while not really changing my opinion of DDG very much. I also think this is a case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Feel free to continue to tell me how I feel about things, though, internet stranger. You're clearly much more in tune with my opinions than I am.
pcmaffey 4y ago

rhim 4y ago

I did not know this privacy comparison between browsers. It was shared under the tweet: https://privacytests.org/android.html https://privacytests.org/android.html

dutchblacksmith 4y ago

Well Yegg, I'll keep on using DDG. As I have done for years.

lapcat 4y ago

DuckDuckGo feels like just a front for Microsoft at this point. I once looked into buying search ads on DuckDuckGo, only to discover to my horror that DDG didn't have its own ad business. DDG is entirely reliant on Microsoft's advertising system. You have to sign up for a Microsoft account to even put ads on DDG! And it's difficult — maybe impossible IIRC? — to specifically target DDG in those ads, without also targeting other MS properties. Until DuckDuckGo separates itself from Microsoft and becomes truly independent, especially in its business model, you have to question why DDG even exists. DDG was founded 14 years ago. I can understand initially bootstrapping on MS ads, but what's the excuse now? How about separating yourself from Microsoft first, before making a web browser that gives special exemptions to Microsoft?

Quarrelsome 4y ago
> you have to question why DDG even exists. Its been useful for me for 14 years so idk about that.
rvz 4y ago
Yes. It's quite known for years and very unsurprising to be honest. [0] [1] [2] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30703172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30703172 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27399017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27399017 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25839873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25839873
- lapcat 4y ago
  > very unsurprising to be honest How is it unsurprising? Where on https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/ or https://duckduckgo.com/about https://duckduckgo.com/about do they mention Microsoft or Bing? In fact they go out of their way to mention Google without ever mentioning Microsoft: "Is DuckDuckGo owned by Google? No, we are not and have never been owned by Google. We have been an independent company since our founding in 2008 and, unlike some other search engines, we don’t rely on Google’s results for any of our search results."
  - 4y ago

torrentialtom 4y ago

I dropped DDG back in March when Weinberg disclosed that they were engaging in censorship and injecting bias into search results related to the Ukraine/Russia conflict. Now that we see he's sold his soul to MS for $$$, this further confirms my decision. I'm using Brave as my search engine now.

maverick74 4y ago

@yegg Well... how about stopping all this "Bing on the background" thing and do like Brave search and Qwant (which i'm testing as to switch away from ddg for a few months now - because of you relying in Bing) and start believing a bit more on your own index??? Why not start being a "real" search engine??? I would say it's about time!!! (If brave and qwant can do it, so can you - man... even Gigablast does it!!!)

yegg 4y ago
First, it is misleading to say our results just come from Bing. That's far from the case in actuality. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490994 for a more detailed explanation on that. On other search engines, they all rely somewhat on either Google's or Bing's web crawling: Qwant, Bing and Brave, Google (and Bing for images). This is easy to see as a webmaster since you don't see their crawlers much (if at all). Only Google and Bing are doing full scale web crawls. However, search is a lot more than traditional web links -- in fact it is about half now from instant answers that can come from dozens of sources and indexes (which the above comment gets into).
- mda 4y ago
  Care to give some numbers instead of handwaving? What percentage of the queries are answered from bing index? Or even better what percentage of queries that resulted in an ad click were powered by Bing? A ballpark estimate is fine.
- maverick74 4y ago
  Yes, i've read most of the comments... But what i would REALLY like to see on DDG (beside it becoming fully OpenSource - someday) was having it taking the step of not relying on Bing. That is a terrible shadow over you. You should embrace the momentum you're having and step up and do your own thing. Your own index. Yes, you have to build/rely on others such as wikipedia... naturally But please... NOT on big tech!!! Or one day, someone else will get there and eat your lunch (Honestly, Qwant is a great alternative that apparently does not rely on big tech) I maybe wrong, but i think this is what everyone one wishes from DDG!!! I believe everyone wants DDG free from Big Tech (but everyone is free to correct me).

verisimi 4y ago

I'm enjoying presearch! https://www.presearch.org/ https://www.presearch.org/ you can dive into google/ddg/etc's searches on the left, but its pretty decent!

Imnimo 4y ago

So if I understand correctly, the problem is that in order to license its search index, MS requires a concession from DDG on its browser. From a customer's standpoint, these are two separate products - you can use DDG search and not use DDG's browser, or vice versa. It's only because they're made by the same company that MS has the leverage to demand this carve-out. It seems like the answer for customers is to just not use a browser made by DDG, thereby removing that leverage.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

Sorry, if your software disallows blocking MS trackers you are in no way orienting yourself towards privacy.

x32n23nr 4y ago

Original audit thread: https://twitter.com/thezedwards/status/1528808759027331072 https://twitter.com/thezedwards/status/1528808759027331072

nonrandomstring 4y ago

> Microsoft and DuckDuckGo have partnered Those are the saddest 5 words I have read all week. Et tu, Brute? "Partnered" is not a word one uses in connection with convicted criminal monopolists with a history of bribery, intimidation and fraud. I choose my words carefully - Microsoft are gangsters who would sell their own grandmothers for beer money. For DuckDuckGo to be associated with them is a disgrace.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
By all means, spray perfume around, but you can't hide the stench of the truth.

BilalBudhani 4y ago

Sadly this remind me of the golden phrase > if you are not paying for the product then you are the product I have switched to Kagi [0] a paid search engine (free in beta) as my default search engine and so far it has been working out great. [0] https://www.kagi.com https://www.kagi.com

Mo3 4y ago
Same here, very happy with Kagi and have no problem paying for the product instead of becoming the product.
libraryatnight 4y ago
I'll pile on this Kagi recommendation - going on a few months I've used it exclusively. It has bangs like DDG but I find I use them less. Kagi's results are generally quite good.

LeoPanthera 4y ago

Linked to in the Twitter thread was this site which I've never heard of, but is very interesting: https://privacytests.org https://privacytests.org

vimacs2 4y ago

Well, the writing was on the wall as soon as they started blocking "Russian misinformation" that DDG are trying to ape the general practices of other search engines. Now, even the privacy itself is a secondary concern. Thankfully, I've already switched to Brave search last month and will likely eventually set up a SearX instance for a long term solution free of control by a corporation.

darksidespoon 4y ago

Sadly DDG can no longer be trusted for being shady. A better option would have been to let the community decide. You could have easily posted something to the effect of "One of the search engines wants us to sign an NDA and force us to allow more tracking than we are comfortable with" Then let the community decide if we wanted a branded browser that is less secure or even if enough folks didn't care that you could still justify dev cycles on the browser. No you took the shady approach and that is sad.

Astd 4y ago

The Beta does.

Astd 4y ago

The Beta does the job blocking.

Astd 4y ago

Adobe is collecting data without user authentication on Android phones

brandonjhgoogle 4y ago

I use Firefox with the following add-ons: uBlock Origin, Smart Referer, Resist Fingerprinting, Decentraleyes, Cookie AutoDelete. Microsoft aside, does the DuckDuckGo browser provide any privacy benefits over this setup? What keeps DDG users from switching to Firefox?

Astd 4y ago

DDG blocking Google to read encrypted e-mail from the application Eboks.