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Care about search privacy? Duck Duck Go no longer logs IPs.

gabrielweinberg.com

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Re: Care about search privacy? Duck Duck Go no longer logs IPs.

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did an experiment and turned off javascript and redid the test... it still is unique enough to track a browsing session. Give it a try. I would consider using Duck Duck Go if nothing was logged. Right now I use another service precisely because they don't log anything.

what other service? Is it scroogle?

yes

Re: Care about search privacy? Duck Duck Go no longer logs IPs.

#53
post #40
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but there are rules if you do. (e.g., have to share with FBI when asked, have to delete after X months). Most search companies want to identify you. The problem is keeping them from having too many records.

>> "Most search companies want to identify you." I'm not convinced they want to do it for any malicious/profit based motive. They want to identify me to give me a better user experience, sure. Being able to identify users searching on a search engine doesn't suddenly mean it's easier to monetize. Google would still make billions from the adverts next to search results regardless of how identifiable users are. It's no…

Remember when AOL purposely released search data? They tried to think it through and took steps to anonymize the data before they let anyone look at it. A lot of interesting things fell out of it, a lot more then you'd expect.

http://consumerist.com/2006/08/aol-user-927-illuminated.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_scandal

In the end you're either part of that set or your not. What's bothering people is not having a choice.

Re: Care about search privacy? Duck Duck Go no longer logs IPs.

#55
post #2

This is definitely a killer niche to fill given the current privacy conscious climate [around here]. Kudos.

I clicked to open the comments threads for both this and the "Please TechCrunch, stop using "dead simple" to describe every new app." article.

I honestly thought this was an ironic response to the second article!

Re: Care about search privacy? Duck Duck Go no longer logs IPs.

#56
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storing that much data about users isn't harmless just because the company doesn't do anything bad with it. Even if that company would forever be good , they could still have their servers infiltrated into or stolen, or some government could decide that they want the data over night.

If you're looking at risk though: * Computer could have been compromised * Wifi/local network could have been compromised * Your ISP could have been compromised * Some of the peers on the internet between your ISP and google " * The datacenter where Googles servers are And that's before the data gets to Google. I'd guess that the most common privacy theft is at the first 2 steps - local computer / wifi network. Any o…

just because your data can be stolen in other ways does not mean you should do nothing about it. you could address all those issues.

Re: Care about search privacy? Duck Duck Go no longer logs IPs.

#57
post #22
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Privacy conscious climate"? Are we using the same Internet? (The one with Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc...)

By privacy conscious I mean users - specifically us techy users (where there is a lot of privacy debate currently going on)

It's certainly a niche, but I'm not sure how many techy users really care about privacy. We all have Gmail accounts, right? Which store emailed passwords, password reset links, private conversations, account balances, and all sorts of other stuff?

Another data point... Our userbase at RescueTime is comprised almost entirely geeks. We measure and store second-by-second attention data on their computer. We make all sorts of privacy features available (ability to delete bits of data, track only whitelisted stuff, etc., etc.). The VAST majority of our users never touch any of these features.

And we're growing like gangbusters.

I think people who make the bet that people in the future are going to be increasingly privacy-conscious are making a pretty bad bet... But I do imagine that it will continue to be a niche (though likely a shrinking one).

Re: Care about search privacy? Duck Duck Go no longer logs IPs.

#58
Good move, you now have one more user to not-track. I'll be trying DuckDuckGo out as my default search. I'll give you feedback if it doesn't work out. I hope others will give you a try by setting you as the default, too - you can always switch back. (Those that do, change http to https.)

Re: Care about search privacy? Duck Duck Go no longer logs IPs.

#59
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're looking at risk though: * Computer could have been compromised * Wifi/local network could have been compromised * Your ISP could have been compromised * Some of the peers on the internet between your ISP and google " * The datacenter where Googles servers are And that's before the data gets to Google. I'd guess that the most common privacy theft is at the first 2 steps - local computer / wifi network. Any o…

just because your data can be stolen in other ways does not mean you should do nothing about it. you could address all those issues.

Right, but knowing the risk associated with things is important... For example I don't care much about terrorism, I care about making sure my kids look both ways when crossing the road.

Similarly, I care more about individual users PCs getting compromised than Google getting hacked.

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