If Duck really collects user data, the moment this is found out, they’re dead, so for that reason alone, they probably don’t do it. The alternative is that they’re betting everything on nobody ever finding out which sounds crazy.
At the same time, as far as I know there has been no independent audit. Considering they made over 100 million in 2020, they clearly have the finances to fund an independent audit. It would also improve their reputation and clear up some of the uncertainty about their collection of user data in practice
Even better (but more unlikely): they could open source the search engine so we all can audit them.
Suspicious of most of the rotten-meat smells on the net as I am, I use DDG for everything. Compare the person(s) who said "Don't be evil" (then...) to picking the name DuckDuckGo.
I also think that it is unlikely but, let's not forget that some unlikely things are regularly found to be true.
In 2019 many thought that a global pandemic was unlikely, in 2007 they thought that a housing market crash was unlikely, and so on.
Personally, I think an independent audit would go a long way in clearing up my doubts.
That link you provided makes a good case for why DDG is not the ally we need in the privacy war.
Currently, whenever DDG doesn't cut it, I add the !sp bang and get Google results through StartPage. I know that SP is owned by an advertising company but I still prefer them to straight up Google. I tried using searX to get proxied Google results but it required a few extra steps so I don't usually go for it.
Being a paid service means Kagi's incentives are different. Instead of selling your data or profiting from feeding into ad-tech food chain, we are interested in selling you a subscription.
We do not associate queries with an account, as a matter of fact we do not save queries at all. You are right that this can not be verified, the question you need to ask yourself is what kind of incentive we have for misusing user data in any way.
Unless users want us to do start using their search history to improve quality of searches (something we may introduce as an option in the future as we've been asked to), we have no reason to do so.
Until your growth slows down and you realize you can get away with doing both.
There are so multiple industries (TVs, Games, Streaming) where paid users are still being monetized to the maximum extend possible by showing them ads, selling their data, etc. that this argument is just dishonest now.
I am very interested in seeing you explain which ones have been proven true and your citing of sources.
-> "Debunked conspiracy theory that after Hillary Clinton's campaign email hack falsely claimed emails contained coded messages that connected several high-ranking Democratic Party officials and alleged human trafficking child sex ring"
Minor But Still Serious and True Facts:
Anthony Weiner was elected for New York congressional terms as Democrat politician 7 times. In September 2016, claims were published that Weiner had engaged in sexting with a 15-year-old girl from North Carolina, and devices owned by Weiner were seized as part of an investigation into this incident. The report prompted a criminal investigation and Weiner's laptop was seized. Emails that were pertinent to the Hillary Clinton email controversy were discovered on the laptop; The Wall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors were weighing whether or not to bring child pornography charges against Weiner over the incident On May 19, 2017, Weiner pleaded guilty to another, unrelated sexting charge of transferring obscene material to a minor, and was sentenced to 21 months in prison, ordered to pay a $10,000 fine, and was required to permanently register as a sex offender.
Example B - Crazy Conspiracy Theory: Government Was Stealing Dead Bodies to do Radioactive Testing.
True: “Project Sunshine" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_SUNSHINE
Example C - Conspiracy:
The Dalai Lama is a CIA agent.
Minor But Still Serious and True Facts:
...According to declassified intelligence documents, The Dalai Lama earned $180,000 in connection with the CIA’s funding of the Tibetan Resistance to the tune of $1.7 million per year...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Tibetan_program
Example D - Conspiracy: The government is using it's vast resources to track citizens.
Example A: You showed it isn't true. Example B: not present on list(1) Example C: not present on list(1) Example D: not present on list(1)
(1)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories
Well done.
So what are you stating with the comment? All conspiracy theories are false or did not originate on some less outrageous event?
It'd take a whistleblower for anyone to ever find out. What are the odds of that happening? I don't think we can count on someone who is being paid by a company to tell us about their actions when their livelihood/gravy train depends on it and they may be opening themselves up to legal problems for coming forward.
Not may people have the sort of integrity that folks like Snowden, Klein, or Tice demonstrated and even those that do can be pressured into keeping silent.
No it won't. If you have a hypothesis you can just test it out. Go submit some fake personal data and then see if it shows up anywhere else. This trick is as old as using a honeypot name or email address to test if a service signs you up for junk mail.
this is not a valid test, for a whole lot of reasons. especially not in terms of internet search engines.
One reason for this, is that the specific things you search aren't what's actually valuable. Companies use that data to make guesses about you. It's those guesses, not your specific search terms, that are used to profile you.
So why not just try to get yourself profiled a certain way? Search a bunch of stuff about a specific disease and click a bunch of the links and see if you start getting targeted ads about those diseases? Well, who is to say who sold that data? Was it the search engine, or the websites you clicked on?
Not all the data collected on you is used for targeted ads, and of course even when it is used for ads not all of those targeted ads demonstrate a proven link back to your search teams. If you see an ad for cheap airline tickets maybe it's because you've been searching for stuff about another country, or maybe some algorithm thinks your bipolar and entering a manic phase since they are more likely to buy tickets. Maybe it's just an ad for cheap airline tickets because the airline wants more people to fly right while weather warms. You can't know.
Better ways to test what DDG is doing behind the scenes might be things like get hired there in a central role. Have the government or an independent auditor review their data collection practices.
Then come up with a better test. I'm sure you can think of something that answers those questions to a reasonable level of confidence and can be targeted at any data broker. This is literally what a lot of independent auditing actually is. The reality is, you can't go and work on the inside at every data broker and that defeats the purpose of an independent audit anyways. So you have to come up with something else.
> The reality is, you can't go and work on the inside at every data broker and that defeats the purpose of an independent audit anyways. So you have to come up with something else.
It's true that it's unreasonable for people get a job at every company they have to work with. The real solution is regulation and oversight to protect our data from being collected, sold, and used against us. Experts all agree we need it and they've been saying so for a very very long time, but so far there's not been much effort from congress.
Or is the simplest explanation that they're not lying and they do what they say they do?
So I guess you're going with interpreting the scripture as "render unto Caesar that [data] which belongs to Caesar"?
Anyway, I'm a happy DDG user (on devices where typing "!g" isn't a pain).