More People Than Ever Are Using DuckDuckGo; Site Says It Observed 14M Searches in One Day This Month (betanews.com)

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More People Than Ever Are Using DuckDuckGo; Site Says It Observed 14M Searches in One Day This Month (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on Monday January 23, 2017 @04:00AM from the affinity-for-privacy dept.

An anonymous reader shares a BetaNews article: A lot of people are more privacy aware than they have been in the past, and are wary of entrusting everything they search for to Google. That's where privacy-focused sites like DuckDuckGo come in. Its growth since it launched 8 years ago has been nothing short of staggering, with the number of searches skyrocketing since 2013, when Edward Snowden first revealed how the US government was spying on its people. The search site says it has to date served up over 10 billion anonymous searches, with 4 billion of those occurring in the last year alone, and the company says it is growing faster than ever. On January 10 2017, the site received in excess of 14 million private searches.

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Until the money runs out... by wbr1 · 2017-01-23 04:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

Caveat.. I do not know how DDG is funded. That said, serving that much traffic COSTS. The data they could collect has value. It is likely only a matter of time until one of the following:
1. Company folds due to lack of funds
2. Company sells or reorganizes to collect funds and starts divulging user data to do so.
3. Governments come in and either silently snoop or shut them down.M
Yeah, I am a cynic and have little faith in humanity. Sorry.

--
Silence is a state of mime.
1. Re:Until the money runs out... by houstonbofh · 2017-01-23 04:10 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Seeing as how it just donated a quarter million to privacy sites, I would say they are OK for cash right now. (From the article above) And advertising still pays without having to need the whole pie. https://www.quora.com/How-does... (Searched for on DDG)
2. Re:Until the money runs out... by telchine · 2017-01-23 04:13 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I do not know how DDG is funded.
  DuckDuckGo earns revenue in two ways:
  Serving ads from the Yahoo–Bing search alliance network, and
  Affiliate relationships with several companies
3. Re:Until the money runs out... by Pascoea · 2017-01-23 04:32 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Affiliate relationships with several companies
  That's a pretty vague statement. I don't claim to know anything about DDG, or how they are funded, but that statement to me smells a lot like what Parent Post is concerned about. When your only product is data about what your customers are searching for, what do these "affiliates" have to gain by giving DDG money? Unless these affiliates are just handing over cash, without expecting anything in return.
4. Re:Until the money runs out... by barbariccow · 2017-01-23 04:56 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Basically the way it works is if you search and the link ends in ebay or amazon or another one of their partners, it adds something to the url like "&from=dg" . Then they get either a small amount from the click, or it saves in a cookie/hidden form field, whatever "I came from duck duck go" so that your purchase yields a small percent.
  Anyone who tried to make money from their personal website in the late-90s early 2000s probably remembers this model. It's old. And doesn't track you (It doesn't include WHAT you searched for, just that you found the item and you got there from duck duck go)
5. Re:Until the money runs out... by Anubis+IV · 2017-01-23 05:42 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  No, they're selling your attention without selling your information. As they make abundantly clear in their privacy policy (that's written in refreshingly plain English by the site's founder himself, no less), they modify links to some product pages to make them into affiliate links (i.e. they get a kickback for referring you to product pages at Amazon and eBay).
  Their Information Shared section is a quick read. After they explain that they don't share any info, but that you might inadvertently leak search terms to the sites you click on if you purposefully disable protections DDG enables by default, they then have this great snippet that demonstrates the sort of mindset they follow:
  
  Also, like anyone else, we will comply with court ordered legal requests. However, in our case, we don't expect any because there is nothing useful to give them since we don't collect any personal information.
  Moreover, you can disable advertising for DuckDuckGo if you want (it's a setting you can toggle). Oh, and all of those settings I'm talking about? They only ever exist client-side and aren't linked to an account or identity in any way. You either pass them in as a set or URL parameters or as a cookie that contains no identifiable information. In fact, in a quick check of the site via uMatrix (with ads disabled), it shows that 100% of the resources served are first-party, so there isn't a single external Javascript or tracking cookie being set by sleazy advertisers or people outside their control.
  If you're still concerned, here are the details about how they make money, which make it abundantly clear (again, in plain English) how they make money without selling their users' information.
  Honestly, if you want to complain about DDG, the biggest issue remains the quality of their results. They finally got "good enough" for me, so I switched to them about a year ago and haven't regretted it, and they've only been getting better since then (e.g. they'll oftentimes have the top-rated StackOverflow answer displayed as a pull-out at the top of the search results), but there's still room for improvement (e.g. longer search terms produce noisy results for me). That said, the fact that they offer bangs makes it drop-dead simple to deal with those situations (i.e. add "!g" to your search to Google it instead). Plus, the fact that I can set them as my default search engine in Chrome/iOS/etc. means that no matter where I am, I can just use the bangs for Amazon (!a), Wikipedia (!w), Google Maps (!gm), Rotten Tomatoes (!rt), or whatever else to immediately jump to the results at those sites, rather than having to first navigate to them.
  It's a great site that's continually getting better, and I would strongly encourage others to give it a shot or try it again if it's been awhile since the last time they tried it.
6. Re:Until the money runs out... by Anubis+IV · 2017-01-23 06:05 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  uMatrix shows that 100% of the resources being loaded in a DuckDuckGo search are first-party. There are no external scripts, tracking cookies, or other cross-site references of any sort. The first-party cookies they set are opt-in, entirely optional, and contain no identifiable information. The affiliate stuff is just the Amazon and eBay affiliate programs that anyone can sign up for (i.e. they add parameters to Amazon and eBay URLs to identify DDG as the referrer, that way they get a kickback, but it can't be tied back to you or your search).
  Their privacy policy is written in plain English and--particularly in the three sections about information (not) collected and shared--makes it abundantly clear that they go out of their way to avoid collecting anything remotely related to you in the first place, that way they never have to face people being concerned about the retention loopholes you're talking about. They even offer tips for how you can help prevent information leakage and point out some ways that you may leak information if you choose to disable the protections they've put in place by default.
  I get the cynical attitude, but at least look into things a bit before you wantonly smear one of the few companies that's actually trying to do right by their users when it comes to privacy.
7. Re:Until the money runs out... by harperska · 2017-01-23 09:14 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I just read through the DDG privacy policy statement you linked. I have no reason to doubt their intentions at preserving your privacy. However, it would not be in violation of their privacy policy for them to do a call-out to a third party REST service (e.g. one run by the aforementioned ad network) on the server side as part of their search engine code, sending your IP, user agent, and search string. All they say is that they do not include your search terms in the referrer header sent to websites via links in the result list, and they do not persist any of your information themselves.
8. Re:Until the money runs out... by Anubis+IV · 2017-01-23 10:02 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  That's a loophole worth considering, to be sure, but I don't think it's actually a concern in practice, given that their Information Shared section lists the data they share (i.e. nothing) and the conditions under which they share it (i.e. only when there's a court order). Suffice to say, if they were sharing info in the manner you described, they'd be obligated to disclose it there.
9. Re:Until the money runs out... by rtb61 · 2017-01-23 13:49 · Score: 2
  
  Actually the way it most often happens is. New company with good management provides quality services at a low price with tight profit margins and grows and grows. Along comes a dick bag douche psychopath and quite simply pays more for the company than it is worth with the cooperation or corrupt psychopathic banksters. Once bought they, cut services, cheapen and offshore labour, force up prices, get rid of support and basically trade on betrayed trust with the customer base. Once the profits have been bumped up high enough and just prior to collapse, the banskters dress up the turkey to dump on the market, sell and some short time latter the major collapse, with the psychopaths wandering off with the inevitably offshored profits.
  Those people left holding the bag of shite company, then try to fix it, either by going back to the original quality model (generally the original owners buying it back at a much lower price than they sold it for) or simply trying to force the exploitative model to work (company limps along until bought out at a major discount).
  This is done on purpose with forethought and planning, a corporate scam enabled and protected by government corruption. This is done again and again to virtually every company at one time or another. Which is why the all eventually fail. Corporations that do not test for and exclude psychopathy are fools, eventually those tools will bring down the company, just a matter of time.
  
  --
  Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Google as last choice by houstonbofh · 2017-01-23 04:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

A lot of people (myself included) will look for any other alternative to Google first. That simply became too intrusive, and people are getting very uncomfortable with it. Those same people are still on FaceBook only because that is where everyone else is. If another option becomes available, (What I would love is federated social networking somewhat like e-mail works on various servers transparently) FaceBook may see the same kind of change.
1. Re:Google as last choice by hodet · 2017-01-23 05:10 · Score: 2
  
  I used to have that view. But truth is you can't live in a bubble. Well maybe you can, but you shouldn't have to. I treat FB like walking down the street. If I wouldn't say it in public I don't say it there. I logout of FB when I am not using it. I am still relatively sure they are tracking me if I logout so my whole approach to online is using my public persona. As for Twitter, the communication is limited. With FB you can at least share with family and friends. Twitter is just a bunch of people talking and never listening. They want you to follow them, they want to be popular, they want to push their wares or crappy ideas/ideology.
2. Re:Google as last choice by CRCulver · 2017-01-23 05:35 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  What I would love is federated social networking somewhat like e-mail works on various servers transparently)
  
  Even the federated model of e-mail has declined over time, with the vast majority of people using an e-mail address from a handful of large providers like GMail. Universities and companies are under pressure to have all the e-mail under their domain names actually served through GMail instead of running their own infrastructure. If you want to run your own server, there are a lot more hoops to jump through these days before you can federate, otherwise things you sent out just end up in spam folders. (These hoops are generally reasonable anti-spam ones, but they are nonetheless very different than a decade or two ago.) And now certain websites that monetize the hell out of their userbase are refusing registrations if the e-mail address you enter is from a domain that doesn't nudge its users into adopting a format like firstname.lastname@gmail.com.
Re:But we have Trump now by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2017-01-23 04:07 · Score: 5, Funny

"Obama was doing spying, a lot of spying, and it's been a disaster. We're gonna do spying, they'll be so much spying, you'll be saying "Can we stop some of the spying, just for a change of pace?", but no, we're gonna keep spying, wonderful spying, the best spying you've ever seen"...
Re:And they're improving, too by RobotRunAmok · 2017-01-23 04:12 · Score: 2

They can't NOT improve. It looks and behaves like a first-year CompSci student's summer project. I applaud the spirit behind what they are doing, but if Google is Photoshop, DDG is an Etch-A-Sketch.
For comparison by cdrudge · 2017-01-23 04:28 · Score: 4, Informative

For comparison purposes, Google hasn't said exactly how many searches it handles recently, but in 2012 it said it handled 1.2 trillion searches (or averaging 3.3B/day, 137M/hour, 2.2M/minute, 38k/second). It's estimated they handle over 2T per year now (5.5B/day, 228M/day, 3.8M/hour, 63K/second). So Google likely handles in 2 days what DDG has done in 8 years.
1. Re:For comparison by Voyager529 · 2017-01-23 05:31 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I'm unfortunately in the same boat, but I think it does also depend on what you're looking for. I'd wager that if a lot of people had their default search engine changed to DDG, they'd probably fine. Let's be real, "facebook" and "facebook.com" are very common searches because most people have forgotten the distinction between a search bar and an address bar, so typing URLs in a Google/MSN search is probably a solid third of their traffic. DDG would probably be just fine for this sort of thing; people sure didn't notice when their default search got changed to Trivoli or the dozen other browser hijackers that were making their rounds a few years ago.
  Where DDG comes up very short, however, is in more specialized searches. If you're looking for a code snippet or an outdated version of some app or something more specific and technical, DDG is a crapshoot at best and useless at worst. I mean, I can't really blame them - Bing is still inferior at this point and they have thrown Microsoft quantities of money at the problem. Search is hard - there was a decade prior to Google where Altavista and Lycos were doing their best with plenty of money and lots of talent, and they were still beaten by Google.
  Ironically, DDG might get better relative to Google because Google results have continued their downward spiral toward the lowest common denominator. Just yesterday, I was trying to find out if anyone else with my particular TV was able to get the Android app "AnyRemote" to send the right IR code. I went to Google to search the model number with 'anyremote', and Google seemed to thoroughly ignore the existence of 'anyremote' in my search query, instead showing me physical remote controls, even when I put anyremote in quotes.
  If Google continues this behavior, it's only a matter of time before they end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, giving DDG inroads to increase their market share. The ultimate question is, however, whether the revenue they get while retaining their staunch privacy directives is enough to keep them profitable, or if they will have to compromise their privacy policy, be bought out by someone who does not share their values, or make some other rough choices to keep themselves afloat.
2. Re:For comparison by danomac · 2017-01-23 06:42 · Score: 2
  
  most people have forgotten the distinction between a search bar and an address bar
  Yep. Just last week I saw someone searching for their bank through Google rather than typing it in the address bar. I explained why it's bad to do that in layman-friendly terms and all I got was a blank stare.
  It doesn't help that some browsers are combining the search and address bar; these really should be kept separate.
Re:But we have Trump now by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 04:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

Trump will get rid of all the spying. Thank you Trump.
When Obama was campaigning in '07 he said he would end the spying on U.S. citizens. And have the most transparent government ever. And close Gitmo.
I actually heard the speech this morning on talk radio.
I don't even care what Trump's stance is on domestic spying, because the alternative was Hillary. And rules don't apply to a Clinton. Rules like the Constitution.
Re:And they're improving, too by Pascoea · 2017-01-23 04:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

but if Google is Photoshop, DDG is an Etch-A-Sketch.
This is an excellent analogy, especially if all you need to get the job done is an Etch-A-Sketch. In most cases, the less complicated the tool is the more effective it is at accomplishing its intended purpose. Which is going to be a better tool for pounding in nail? A hammer or this?
Re:And they're improving, too by vux984 · 2017-01-23 04:53 · Score: 2

"They can't NOT improve. It looks and behaves like a first-year CompSci student's summer project."
~shrug~ It looks like google did when it was still good.
Re:Great search engine by barbariccow · 2017-01-23 05:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

It depends how you search. I know how to search. Google used to let me search well. Then they changed that.
"Yeah, I know you put all 5 of those words on there, but how about just two of them, and a vague 3rd-level synonym for a third?"
or "Hey, I know you put that error message in quotes. But I didn't get any ad results related to that, so I just decided to remove 3/4 of the words and replace them with 'lose weight now'
If you need that, sure, use google. If you actually know what you're searching for, use ddg.
Re:But we have Trump now by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 05:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

100% better than a president lying to your face
Great for TPB by cen1 · 2017-01-23 05:12 · Score: 3, Informative

When I forget the latest domain TBP had to switch to I use DDG and it finds it. Can't say the same for Goo.. *CENSORSHIP* search engine.
1. Re:Great for TPB by cen1 · 2017-01-23 05:38 · Score: 2
  
  I just typed "TPB" and "thepiratebay" and all I get is proxies. Official site is censored by Google.
DDG == Google yet, but improving. by bjdevil66 · 2017-01-23 05:25 · Score: 4, Informative

I decided to give DDG a try full-time as my default in the browser a while back (year or two?). DDG wasn't getting it done, however, so I would just end up back on Google. It was easy to justify since my office still uses Google docs/spreadsheets and is deeply intertwined with their products and I can't 100% escape their "Big Google" ecosystem. Besides, their results were usually superior when it came to getting me the exact results I wanted (vs. just being close) QUICKLY - so I took advantage of the saved time I'd already paid for with my privacy already.

I'm finding that more recently, however, that DDG is "good enough" in most cases. I still go back and forth because I'm too impatient, but DDG always gets the first shot - and I don't go back very often.

So, if you tried DDG in the past and found their results wanting, you should give it another try.
Re:But we have Trump now by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 05:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

Trump will get rid of all the spying. Thank you Trump.
When Obama was campaigning in '07 he said he would end the spying on U.S. citizens. And have the most transparent government ever. And close Gitmo.
Two things there:
(1) Congress prevented him.
(2) Candidate Obama, once elected, adapted to fit the political reality. Candidate Trump seems so far to keep wanting to distort reality to conform to his fragile ego.

I actually heard the speech this morning on talk radio.
I don't even care what Trump's stance is on domestic spying, because the alternative was Hillary. And rules don't apply to a Clinton. Rules like the Constitution.
But the constitution does apply to Trump?
I prefer duckduckduckgo by MobyDisk · 2017-01-23 05:26 · Score: 2

Since I am concerned that duckduckgo might leak search information, I prefer duckduckduckgo, which uses duckduckgo internally, but hides my searches even better. Should we ever find that duckduckduckgo is also storing personal information, we could always create duckduckduckduckgo, which would solve the problem once and for all.
Almost noble by Okian+Warrior · 2017-01-23 07:07 · Score: 2, Informative

When Obama was campaigning in '07 he said he would end the spying on U.S. citizens. And have the most transparent government ever. And close Gitmo.
Two things there:
(1) Congress prevented him.
(2) Candidate Obama, once elected, adapted to fit the political reality. Candidate Trump seems so far to keep wanting to distort reality to conform to his fragile ego.
About 6 months prior to Obama's first term election, he completely flip-flopped on telecom immunity.
As a result, Obama received greater telecom campaign donations, which helped him spend more money on his campaign.
That's an example of a politician "adapting to fit political reality", and the political climate was so corrupt that your candidate felt comfortable betraying a promise several months before the election!
Framing "betraying campaign promises" as "adapting to fit the political reality" makes it seem almost... noble.
Re:But we have Trump now by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 07:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

Even before being elected he called for his opponents to be hacked
No, he did not. He pointed out that if someone wants the 30k emails Hillary erased then ask Russia. Because Russia most certainly has them. And given that the emails she did hand over were enough to put a normal person in prison, Putin has some serious dirt on Hillary.
Spinning that into Trump calling for Russia to hack democrats is complete bullshit.
Re:And they're improving, too by lgw · 2017-01-23 07:52 · Score: 2

They can't NOT improve. It looks and behaves like a first-year CompSci student's summer project. I applaud the spirit behind what they are doing, but if Google is Photoshop, DDG is an Etch-A-Sketch.
I hear just complaint just often enough to suspect astroturfing. I've never had a problem with DDG search results - well, no more problem than I have with Google. Plus there's a lot of good bang commands that give me a better command line in my search box, starting with !wa to use the wonderful Wolfram Alpha site.

--
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Re:But we have Trump now by harperska · 2017-01-23 08:39 · Score: 2

... given that the emails she did hand over were enough to put a normal person in prison ...
I keep hearing people repeat this (probably because they keep hearing it repeated on talk radio and such), but I have never actually heard any specifics. Can you please tell me what it was that she did exactly, and which law that action broke (please cite specific statute), the breaking of which would normally have lead to a conviction and incarceration?
Re:And they're improving, too by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-23 10:00 · Score: 2

Criticising Google's privacy, advertised content, etc. is very easy (and probably well deserved), but on the technical front there are still really good. I don't recall having ever seen a clear error, bug, bad-looking part, etc. when using Google. I have used Google a lot, exactly the same than all the people here (at least, at some point). I don't agree with some of their policies and this is the only reason why I am trying to not use it.

--
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.