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.

Comments

That's mildly disappointing

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I would have preferred it if Duckduckgo had worked with Openstreetmap. If would have fitted their general self-declared ethics better methink.

So yeah, going to bed with Apple is better than integrating into the Google collective - although I don't believe Apple's good intentions for one second, and working with Google was never an option for DDG in the first place anyway. But it's kind of meh really...

Re:That's mildly disappointing

[Dan East]

I would have preferred it if Duckduckgo had worked with Openstreetmap.

OSM provides the data, however they do not provide hosting of tilesets. From OSM's terms:

OpenStreetMap’s own servers are run entirely on donated resources. They have strictly limited capacity. Heavy use of OSM tiles adversely affects people’s ability to edit the map, and is an abuse of the individual donations and sponsorship which provide hardware and bandwidth. As a result, we require that users of the tiles abide by this tile usage policy.

OpenStreetMap data is free for everyone to use. Our tile servers are not.

Emphasis theirs. That is why DuckDuckGo was using MapBox. MapBox hosts tilesets generated from Open Street Map data (plus they have some really sweet interactive map styling tools and can provide tiles in your own styles), however MapBox gets expensive if the volume is high, and certainly DuckDuckGo's volume is extremely high.

Also, MapBox uses tracking just like Google to generate traffic layers for their maps. Apps that have MapBox embedded in them are contributing their location data and motion for MapBox to generate live traffic maps, exactly like Google Maps.

So it's likely that DuckDuckGo is no worse off using Apple for their maps, from a privacy and data sharing perspective.

Re:That's mildly disappointing

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

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.