Why DuckDuckGo Is No Longer Really Private
It seems we have Microsoft to thank for this.
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This article is about DuckDuckGo. Privacy is the company’s entire mission statement. “We don’t track you. Ever,” reads DuckDuckGo’s homepage at the time of this writing.
Search Engines not named Google keep getting corrupted. This really saddens me guys, it’s so horrible. I used to like DDG.
We sort of already knew this deep down, same goes for my favorite search engine You.com. DuckDuckGo’s reputation for protecting privacy has taken a hit after revelations emerged of a tracking deal with Microsoft.
Security researcher Zack Edwards last week revealed that DuckDuckGo’s mobile browsers allow some Microsoft sites to bypass its block on trackers.
The Betrayal
DuckDuckGo's mobile web browser allows Microsoft data trackers, despite promising privacy protections.
While the browser blocks Facebook and Google trackers, DuckDuckGo makes an exception for some of Microsoft’s. Edwards found that the browsers allow allows data to be sent to Microsoft’s LinkedIn and Bing domains.
“You can capture data within the DuckDuckGo so-called private browser on a website like Facebook’s workplace.com and you’ll see that DDG does NOT stop data flows to Microsoft’s Linkedin domains or their Bing advertising domains,” Edwards tweeted.
That is super sketchy!
Everyone keeps selling out or gets bought out.
I care about privacy so this pisses me off!
DuckDuckGo said the exemption was due to a search agreement with Microsoft.
Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO and founder of DuckDuckGo, provided detailed responses to the uproar on Twitter and Reddit. As if that helps?
DuckDuckGo used to stand for something.
The crazy part is DDG CEO saying their hands are tied:
If you peddle privacy as your mission statement (like WhatsApp Founders once did), you can’t make exclusive search partnerships with the Barons of search and the social graph.
It’s pretty basic!
DuckDuckGo is a search engine that prides itself on its privacy by not tracking your searches or your behavior while performing searches. Furthermore, instead of building user profiles to display interest-based advertisements, DuckDuckGo will use contextual advertisements from partners, like Ads by Microsoft. But who knew what this actually meant!
They have Microsoft trackers, so what is the point!
DuckDuckGo still offers more privacy protection than most popular browsers, but not as some users had hoped.
So I expect privacy, but it’s only half-hearted. While performing a security audit of the DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser, security researcher Zach Edwards discovered that while the browser blocks Google and Facebook trackers, it allowed Microsoft trackers to continue running.
Sad, just sad!
Makes you wonder if DDG was ever truly private.
Further tests showed that DuckDuckGo allowed trackers related to the bing.com and linkedin.com domains while blocking all other trackers. So you pretend you care about privacy, but not for those who fund you.
DuckDuckGo’s search syndication deal with Microsoft is the root of an issue. And it’s a issue of deep betrayal for consumers. For DuckDuckGo, a company that markets itself as one that doesn’t track users, this is turning into quite a scandal. It’s deeply upsetting.
Thanks for reading!