Is this referring to Google Analytics? If so, I feel like "Google deploys" isn't quite fair compared to "Google's tracker is deployed" or something to that effect. But in any case, the phrasing is confusing enough to me to post here, since I want to know if it means something other than GA, which I understand and can block with uMatrix.
Also, may be he's speaking it just for the sake of promotion and doesn't take it too seriously himself, but the quality of search results can definitely be greatly improved when you know more about a person than just their search keywords (or even their country). If he actually believes what he says on Quora, I won't place my bet on his business doing too great in the future.
1. The first example (what he writes in his answer) - when I type "dishwasher" in DDG, every shopping website it lists on the first page is from USA, and I don't even live in the same continent. Even when I enable my country results through the button shown on top of the page, the shopping websites are not even the top ones in my country. When I type that in Google, it lists not only the top e-sellers in the country, the most popular local stores in my area as well. What will the advertisers achieve when they don't even know which place I live in? Who will sell me that dishwasher?
2. When I type Zoo, it's pretty damn clear I want to search a zoo in my area. DDG's results even when country is enabled are plain stupid. Write in Google, and it tells me exactly what I want to know.
3. When I type 'Jaguar' in the search box, all top link results are of the Jaguar car, but all the top image results are the Jaguar animal. Google is much more consistent here.
I can give tens of examples of why personalization of search results is not that bad an idea for the value it adds. Of course, there are very important negative side effects to it, and that's why we have DDG. But I would have respected his opinion much more had he acknowledged that personalization of search results adds a great value, but also has other consequences, like any balanced personal who can see both sides of a coin.
Searching for dishwasher on DDG gives Currys, John Lewis, Argos, appliancesdirect, and ao.com. All of those are UK based, exactly what I would expect
Searching google.co.uk gives Currys, BestBuy (which gives a choice between CA, US, MX), Lowes (US), Home Depot Canada, Home Depot U.S.
DDG is far better
When I search for Zoo on DDG, I get IMDB about a TV series, Chester Zoo (UK's most visited), London Zoo, and Wiki about the tv series. On Google.co.uk I get stuff about the TV series, Nairobi national park, and then stuff about Boston USA, Berlin, and Madrid.
DDG is far better.
P.S. : Had DDG been far better, they wouldn't need those Google Bangs that many users praising DDG keep finding themselves going back to.
dishwasher on google brings up argos, john lewis and a bunch of shops near me. on ddg it’s US only.
zoo brings up the nearest zoos around me as well as a bunch of other uk zoos. ddg is again US.
ddg doesn’t even know my location!
and this is, from my understanding, one of the reasons people are using ddg in the first place. and the reason i avoid going ddg. i need context aka state that’s already on their servers; instead of mentioning state each time (i’m in london and searching for vs just searching for)