Slashdot Mirror
Google, Which Owns Duck.com, Confuses Users Searching For Its Rival DuckDuckGo and Redirects Them Back To Google (twitter.com)
Commenting on the record $5 billion fine on Google by the European Commission, privacy focused search engine DuckDuckGo said this week it welcomes the decision as it has "felt [Google's] effects first hand for many years and has led directly to us having less market share on Android vs iOS and in general mobile vs desktop." The company said: Up until just last year, it was impossible to add DuckDuckGo to Chrome on Android, and it is still impossible on Chrome on iOS. We are also not included in the default list of search options like we are in Safari, even though we are among the top search engines in many countries. The Google search widget is featured prominently on most Android builds and is impossible to change the search provider. For a long time it was also impossible to even remove this widget without installing a launcher that effectively changed the whole way the OS works. Their anti-competitive search behavior isn't limited to Android. Every time we update our Chrome browser extension, all of our users are faced with an official-looking dialogue asking them if they'd like to revert their search settings and disable the entire extension. Google also owns http://duck.com and points it directly at Google search, which consistently confuses DuckDuckGo users. "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is google," wrote security researcher Mikko Hypponen, summing up the story.
Update: Google makes amends.
Update: Google makes amends.
The other stuff sure. Amen.
But I, for one, would not for any reason think that I would find "Duck Duck Go" at duck.com ....
Someone else already bought Duck Duck Google. Still a generic landing page. Whoever owns it should just point it to Bing.
Yeah yeah I know: Google dropped that motto a while back, but this sounds like something Microsoft would do.
Thatâ(TM)s the definition of anti-competitive behavior. Competitiveness means succeeding on your own merits, not because you control a completely unrelated business segment.
They wouldn't be so easily confused if the DuckDuckGo landing page didn't look nearly identical to Google's landing page. Contrast to Bing, Yahoo, Ask, Startpage, Qwant, Yandex (#1 in Russia), Naver (#1 in South Korea). The only other major search engine which makes the same mistake of copying Google too closely is Baidu (#1 in China).
The current question is "What do you think of the EU decision to fine Google $5 billion?" - I would think that after reading TFA, this would change some people's minds and explain one of the reasons why the (in my opinion) the fine was justified.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Someone is smart enough to use duckduckgo for privacy but confused about the difference between duck.com and duckduckgo.com?
I've been using DuckDuckGo.com on my ChromeOS laptop for the past few months. Works great and I haven't found any problems with my searches.
Happy to have an alternative.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I explained this one years ago here
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Obviously they don't care to undo my changes from when they bought On2/Duck.
" For a long time it was also impossible to even remove this widget "
No it wasn't
Yes it was. See I can do that too... though here, I'll provide some reference.
There's even an article with suggestions on how to do it (one of which is installing a new launcher as said in the summary), and how its not necessarily possible on all devices (check comments).
https://trendblog.net/remove-g...
I Googled for DuckDuckGo and was told by Google to check my privilege and go back to using Google, or else they index me as an oppressive member of patriarchy.
Break them up. $5b is too low. I want them to be squeezed for every penny. When you engage in poor business practices all of your profits/revenue since that engagement and then some need to be taken away.
They engaged in the business practice and have "some of it" taken away; no that's not acceptable. This bullshit from Google has been going on for 10 years now. $5b is a drop in the fucking bucket.
BREAK THEM UP.
"Duck Season!"
"Duck Season!"
"Duck Season!"
"Duck Season!"...
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Sounds like anti-competitive meddling to me. This is exactly why we elected Trump, to reduce regulations and allow business to succeed rather than have government hinder them.
When I went to Duckduckgo, I did a double take. That big white duck on the orange background looks way too much like "Google" spelled out in multicolored letters.
WTF were the duckduckgo people thinking?!
No. Its what happens when one competitor wins the competition. The losers end up calling that anti-competitive behavior. MS was penalized for anti-competitive behavior after it won the desktop market but the truth in MS didn't win the desktop market because they had the best product they won because no one besides Apple even tried to compete. Netscape had the browser market conquered and then displayed their astonishing technical and management incompetence and handed the browser market over to MS by default. It took 8 years for the Netscape code to be reborn as Firefox to get back into the competition. WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 ruled the early MS desktop application space and they lost it because they at first didn't want to create Windows versions and by the time they realized their mistake they were also history. And just about every other competitor on the MS desktop application platform sold the rights to their technology to MS instead of trying to compete. MS didn't have to lie, cheat, or steal more than any other aggressive corporation because their competitors made terrible decisions or sold out.
Note the date of the article in the URL:
https://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/01/30/we-bet-you-dont-know-who-owns-duck-com-and-what-it-redirects-to/
Sounds like anti-competitive meddling to me. This is exactly why we elected Trump, to reduce regulations and allow business to succeed rather than have government hinder them.
Oh, how right, now let's live under a russian controlled mafia council instead and be hindered only by daily street corner executions on 5th avenue, while converting the national parks to toxic waste dumps.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
No. Its what happens when one competitor wins the competition.
No, it's what happens when a company with market control breaks the law.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Meh, Google controls almost everything on the web including its domination of web browser and search. DuckDuckGo is a noble attempt but falls way short of gathering any interest from the masses. Other then tin foil hat people who obsess over privacy of which I really do not think many actually do anymore.
The EU fails to understand that people choose Google search and nobody is forcing you to use it. While I agree Google does its best to steer you into its products. I could say the same about Microsoft or Apple, or any other company.
It is DNS as well. How many people change their ISP DNS to use the Google one?
Do you think that all that lovely resover information that their DNS gets is wasted. They know that IP X wanted to resolve www.DuckDuckGo.com.
They have to return the right resolved IP but it will be logged and used to build up your IP's profile for the benefit of their advertisers.
Dump Google including their DNS.
Google also owns http://duck.com/ and points it directly at Google search, which consistently confuses DuckDuckGo users.
Everyone knows you never stop after just one duck.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
How can a user confuse Duck.com and DuckDuckgo.com ? They aren't even the same length.
Just because they both have Duck in it? They really take the world for idiots.
MS was penalized for anti-competitive behavior after it won the desktop market
They won the desktop market by competing, and good on them for it. What they were actually penalized for was being anti-competitive in an entirely different market when they tried to leverage that win to bolster their position in the browser market.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Can someone please buy the DNS googlegooglego.com, and redirect it to duckduckgo.com?
I would bet that way more people land on duck.com because they're trying to type in fuck.com.
It is true that duck.go redirects you Google. It is also true that you end up in a page of Google search results, at the top of which is DuckDuck.go. This aside, the problem is that DuckDuck.go is not very good. I used it as my default search engine for two weeks a couple of months ago, and had to reluctantly acknowledge that it is has (it did then) a long way to go to become comparable to Google's. Which sucks big time, for I am sick and tired of Google :-(
I've been using DuckDuckGo for my main search engine. It almost completely replaces Google.
The one area where Google excels is finding things like reviews of tech on people's blogs. Even with the term 'blog', DuckDuckGo returns a lot of the typical mediocre reviews from the popular tech sites.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
I just tried to get ahead of the curve and register "peetape.ru" but apparently someone already beat me to it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
earlier today I tried to do a search for "Missouri Duck" but made a typo -- now I'm getting unfortunate advertisements on my websites, including on /.
But they won the Office application market by tying it to the desktop OS. And they won the desktop OS market (for Windows, that is) by cutting deals to throw it in for free along with MS-DOS, for which they already had questionable deals to require a payment on every machine they sell. That's not so different than Google's 'if you sell android on any device, you can only sell the real android on all your devices'.
But as far as search is concerned, Google had won search long before Android came along. And part of the reason for Android was to prevent Microsoft from being the OS alternative to Apple - and bundling Bing to hurt Google. So we may have ended up in a bad place, but how we got there is a long and winding road, littered with lots of bad behavior. And 'bad' is relative, since Android already provides as much or more flexibility than Windows does in terms of letting you replace the built-in default software. And OEM's are even allowed to install competing options on new devices - which Microsoft still doesn't allow...
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Name one person confused by DuckDuckGo and simply Duck.com, get real, that person doesn't belong on the internet if they are that easily confused. Dang it I wanted to buy apples but I keep getting iphones and laptops; weekdays going on ahhh I'm so confused
Right. That is why imports from foreign competitor industries need to be taxed and failing domestic coal industry needs American tax payer money.
When I try to look up the weather for San José I get information for Carmen, Provincia San José. Ok, so I try "weather San Jose, CA", it still finds the city in Costa Rica. So I try using a zip code, "weather 95126". Nope, still Costa Rica. The folks at DuckDuckHack make some painful to watch bugs.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"all of our users are faced with an official-looking dialogue asking them if they'd like to revert their search settings and disable the entire extension. "
This is because before google did this too many search engines paid extensions to force / surprise change users to an UNWANTED search engine.
Is okay, I just bought the domain name for dontbeevil.com
I'll admit it.....when I just skimmed over the title of the article my heart skipped a beat or two...
"You mean Detroit and your average African-American neighborhood in USA?
No.
"I've been to plenty of cities in the world with ethnic neighborhoods and your blacks are up there in the first 3 places in terms of producing stray bullets, street war, and toxic waste/property destruction."
I've been everywhere man and I can say bunk a lot more than that.
If not, that comparison is just...dumb.
thats why it redirects to bing and thats why its trying to buy market share and out pay google, because its backed by microsoft financially somehow through the back door.
Has anyone actually tried to access www.duck.com? Come on, try, i'll wait...
My cellphone ringtone is a ring tone.
... fuck.com? How about fuckgoogle.com? Does google own fuckgooglerightinthefuckingface.com?
Maybe they should, because I am thinking about buying one of those.
Getting enough sales to have the cash to control an entire market segment IS succeeding on their own merits.
I hate Google, and personally use StartPage so they can't data mine me, but this "anti-competitive" whining by DuckDuckGo is weak.
DuckDuckGo can't find stuff nearly as well as Google, because Bing and the others they depend on can't find other stuff nearly as well as Google. Unfortunately, Google is the best search engine BY FAR.
That's why I still use StartPage to search Google without the data mining. I wish StartPage had become the market leader in private search rather than DuckDuckGo since the results are WAY better. But both DuckDuckGo and StartPage are just drops in the bucket compared to the major engines. What would really be useful is if they merged; then maybe they could accomplish something substantive.
The only downside with StartPage is because it pulls from Google, it doesn't solve the problem of Google censoring. But DuckDuckGo likewise doesn't solve that problem because Microsoft/Bing can censor just as easily. I do think alternative sources of information (including social media) are sufficient to circumvent the censorship by Big Tech, meaning using StartPage for private Google results is currently the best plan.
"Err, it's only 5% of revenue that the EU is forcibly stealing at the point of a gun. They still get to keep 95% of THEIR money."
"Hey, Slashdot Reader, do you know what a P&L is? Revenue is not the same as profit."
"Maths is hard. Vote Bernie."
Venezuela: we hate business, unless it's your business.
Venezuela: indoor plumbing returning in 2039
Venezuela: hungry? Why wait? Grab your neighbor and chow down for FREE.
Not because Europeans are 'Murica-hating pinko commies but, because Google is evil.
Besides Trumpicans, your Dear Leader is the one that declared the EU the enemy of 'Murica and started this trade war. The EU didn't want this stupid war. However, if it has to be fought, I sure hope they and China team up and utterly annihilate you arrogant, greedy a__holes.
You 'Muricans can play with your new 3rd world BFFs: Putin, Kim, Duterte, etc. The rest of the world is ready to move on.