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Comment by drtillberg | Hacker News Reader

This. Slippery slope to denying credit based on a consumer's decision to avoid using Facebook or to search using DuckDuckGo.

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DDG is more popular in the tech-literate crowd, most of whom are earning large salaries and therefore we'd expect that DDG usage should be positively (not negatively) correlated with credit worthiness

You are completely missing the point and just making up assumptions to argue, stop

I wasn't arguing with or misunderstanding the point being made. I was just disputing that DDG usage would be positively related to credit unworthiness. I admit that it was pedantic.

I think the denial to credit for DDG is less about credit worthyness and more about "deplatforming" based on personal details. Or thats what it'll become.

That's highly unlikely. As the GGP said, using ddg is associated with being wealthy, so it will have the opposite effect over time.

If you're a rich white guy, this oppression is unlikely to apply to your choices. Instead, your choices will be used as filters to identify you at the exclusion of others

> if you're a rich white guy

Amazing how skin color is the first thing brought up by those (presumably) fighting racism. Ironic?

And my point is that aside from the pendantry about DDGs affect specifically... the result will be scoring systems based on more than just financial capabilities. IE: "we don't want to lend to those who use DDG because they are rich white guys". Deplatforming based on perceived "facts".

You are missing the point: DuckDuckGo is famous for its privacy stance, therefore one would expect that one's use of DuckDuckGo would not appear as "DuckDuckGo usage", but instead as "no search engine usage". The end result would be similar to what seems to happen in the USA (if one believes the anecdotes found in the Internet): not having a credit card means one is rejected when doing things like buying or even renting a house or a car, even though that has nothing to do with credit cards.

Tech literacy is negatively correlated with the likelihood of falling for scams or predatory practices. Companies who typically make their money out of screwing their customers over (and relying on the fact that they don't know/don't bother to rectify the situation) might very well preemptively raise prices or outright deny service to people who they think wouldn't fall for their bullshit.

And nothing of value was lost...

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