2 ms·

They've never allowed a third-party to audit the "privacy" inside their code/platform that is claimed. Suspicious as heck to have enough money for supporting +

They've never allowed a third-party to audit the "privacy" inside their code/platform that is claimed. Suspicious as heck to have enough money for supporting +300 employees plus all other operating costs without an obvious money cow for those costs. Rather use Qwant, Brave or even Ecosia.

ValveFan6969 10mo ago
I found it interesting that they have an article saying "we don't censor search results". Who is "we"? Don't they get their results from Bing?
- yegg 10mo ago
  We = DuckDuckGo. As the article notes, we are increasingly relying on our own search technology. For example, our Search Assist (our version of AI overviews), local results (maps, business listings, etc.), knowledge graph stuff (wikipedia, answers, etc.) don't come from Bing. That said, if Bing happens to removes something, we can add it back, which we do. We do not censor anything ouselves.
  - someperson 10mo ago
    But DuckDuckGo does censor search results, if DMCA takedown requests are countered as censorship (which they should be because the system is abused). Eg, DDG always fail the "watch (specific movie or tv show) online" search query test. Many other search engines like Bing and Google also fail. It's a quick censorship influence test as DMCA takedown requests have a clear track-record of being abused. One search engine that succeeds is Russia's Yandex. I'm sure they censor plenty of things (eg, material sensitive to Russia), but that censorship set may not intersect with the Google, Bing and DDG sets.
    - flexagoon 10mo ago
      > Eg, DDG always fail the "watch (specific movie or tv show) online" search query test. Many other search engines like Bing and Google also fail. DDG results are mostly Bing results, so if a page doesn't show up on Bing, it probably won't on DDG either. That doesn't mean DDG themselves censored the results.
      - wkat4242 10mo ago
        As a user that distinction is meaningless. I don't care what they use as a backend, and I shouldn't have to. If their source provider censors search results it means their own search results are censored too.
nawtagain 10mo ago
[flagged]
yegg 10mo ago
We actually have, as part of https://natlawreview.com/article/nad-examines-privacy-statements-made-duckduckgo-online-ads https://natlawreview.com/article/nad-examines-privacy-statem... "The NAD found the claims supported by the evidence which included a third-party expert confirming that the company’s measures (encryption, tracker blocking, and private searches) protect against the three largest categories of personal data collectors." In terms of money, as the article notes we have 3% of U.S. search market share. That's a lot if you consider how much Google makes. Now, in part because of our search privacy, we make way way less, but it is still enough to be profitable. That said, that means we could be way way more profitable if we tracked people, which we don't.
- calculatte 10mo ago
  [flagged]
- nunobrito 10mo ago
  You must be kidding, right? The article you mention is the same as claiming that a car is "secure" because you look at it from the outside and base the audit on their own statements. That is not a serious review. There is no way you are supporting +300 people per month, which equates to a minimum of 36 million USD per year without even counting infrastructure expenses, fancier salaries for management and associated costs for business building. By all means feel free to present more detailed documentation about your expenses and sources of income. I'll wait, will even grab a chair to avoid getting tired after waiting a few more years. All dodgy.
  - yegg 10mo ago
    Back of the envelope for you: Google does about $200B in search revenue, about half in the U.S. (so $100B). We have about 3% markt share in the U.S., which would equate to about $3B in Google monetization. Now, we make way way less than Google per search, in large part due to our privacy policy, but 10x less is still on the order of 300M per year. So, you can see how we can easily take in more than 36M per year. Also, NAD is a very serious review process as NAD refers any unsubstantiated claims directly to the FTC. Lots of evidence, vetted by a third-party.
mixmastamyk 10mo ago
They do track what you click as well. Need privacy badger to rewrite their tracking urls or adguard to block their links.ddg site. Combined with MS stink, not sure how they have such a rep for privacy.

ValveFan6969 10mo ago

I found it interesting that they have an article saying "we don't censor search results". Who is "we"? Don't they get their results from Bing?

yegg 10mo ago
We = DuckDuckGo. As the article notes, we are increasingly relying on our own search technology. For example, our Search Assist (our version of AI overviews), local results (maps, business listings, etc.), knowledge graph stuff (wikipedia, answers, etc.) don't come from Bing. That said, if Bing happens to removes something, we can add it back, which we do. We do not censor anything ouselves.
- someperson 10mo ago
  But DuckDuckGo does censor search results, if DMCA takedown requests are countered as censorship (which they should be because the system is abused). Eg, DDG always fail the "watch (specific movie or tv show) online" search query test. Many other search engines like Bing and Google also fail. It's a quick censorship influence test as DMCA takedown requests have a clear track-record of being abused. One search engine that succeeds is Russia's Yandex. I'm sure they censor plenty of things (eg, material sensitive to Russia), but that censorship set may not intersect with the Google, Bing and DDG sets.
  - flexagoon 10mo ago
    > Eg, DDG always fail the "watch (specific movie or tv show) online" search query test. Many other search engines like Bing and Google also fail. DDG results are mostly Bing results, so if a page doesn't show up on Bing, it probably won't on DDG either. That doesn't mean DDG themselves censored the results.
    - wkat4242 10mo ago
      As a user that distinction is meaningless. I don't care what they use as a backend, and I shouldn't have to. If their source provider censors search results it means their own search results are censored too.

nawtagain 10mo ago

[flagged]

yegg 10mo ago

We actually have, as part of https://natlawreview.com/article/nad-examines-privacy-statements-made-duckduckgo-online-ads https://natlawreview.com/article/nad-examines-privacy-statem... "The NAD found the claims supported by the evidence which included a third-party expert confirming that the company’s measures (encryption, tracker blocking, and private searches) protect against the three largest categories of personal data collectors." In terms of money, as the article notes we have 3% of U.S. search market share. That's a lot if you consider how much Google makes. Now, in part because of our search privacy, we make way way less, but it is still enough to be profitable. That said, that means we could be way way more profitable if we tracked people, which we don't.

calculatte 10mo ago
[flagged]
nunobrito 10mo ago
You must be kidding, right? The article you mention is the same as claiming that a car is "secure" because you look at it from the outside and base the audit on their own statements. That is not a serious review. There is no way you are supporting +300 people per month, which equates to a minimum of 36 million USD per year without even counting infrastructure expenses, fancier salaries for management and associated costs for business building. By all means feel free to present more detailed documentation about your expenses and sources of income. I'll wait, will even grab a chair to avoid getting tired after waiting a few more years. All dodgy.
- yegg 10mo ago
  Back of the envelope for you: Google does about $200B in search revenue, about half in the U.S. (so $100B). We have about 3% markt share in the U.S., which would equate to about $3B in Google monetization. Now, we make way way less than Google per search, in large part due to our privacy policy, but 10x less is still on the order of 300M per year. So, you can see how we can easily take in more than 36M per year. Also, NAD is a very serious review process as NAD refers any unsubstantiated claims directly to the FTC. Lots of evidence, vetted by a third-party.

mixmastamyk 10mo ago

They do track what you click as well. Need privacy badger to rewrite their tracking urls or adguard to block their links.ddg site. Combined with MS stink, not sure how they have such a rep for privacy.