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Apple Maps Gooses DuckDuckGo In Search Privacy Partnership (cnet.com)
Search engine DuckDuckGo now displays location information from Apple Maps in its search results. "DuckDuckGo now uses Apple Maps both for small maps in location-related search results and for larger, interactive search results that appear in a separate maps tab," reports CNET. "That replaces a combination including MapBox, OpenStreetMap and homegrown technology." From the report: The top reason DuckDuckGo argues you should try it is that it doesn't keep any personal information on you and what you searched for, unlike search leader Google. That dovetails nicely with Apple's sustained push to improve online privacy. But maintaining your privacy can be tough when you're looking for location-related information. DuckDuckGo says it's struck a balance, though. It doesn't send personally identifiable information such as your computer's Internet Protocol network address, to Apple or other third parties, DuckDuckGo said. "For local searches, where your approximate location information is sent by your browser to us, we discard it immediately after use," the company added.
OSM provides the data, however they do not provide hosting of tilesets. From OSM's terms
What I meant was DDG using OSM data and rolling their own service. It's more expensive than using a 3rd party provider - which is cheaper because it gets to exploit the data DDG will inevitably hand over to them - but if DDG truly cared about privacy, they would have done it.
That's what's mildly disappointing: it tells me DDG is okay with compromising when it suits them. Pragmatically, I understand these services cost money to run and provide for free. Yet I can't help drawing a parallel with an early version of another company that promised not to do evil but eventually gave up on the promise.
In other words, I'm wondering if this is the first sign that DDG is abandoning its ideals (because of simple economics, no doubt) and will eventually go full nasty, like all the other big data players.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
The repeated search history and patterns add up to the discovery of the person.
A VPN does not change the words used to search. Its just a new IP every search.
The terms used to search are the key to tracking a person not just their ISP/IP.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"