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DuckDuckGo Challenges Google on Privacy (With a Billboard in San Francisco)

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Re: DuckDuckGo Challenges Google on Privacy (With a Billboard in San Francisco)

#71

Post by epi0Bauqu »

peteforde wrote: post #67

I'm all for a good story, and the one-man DDG going up against Google is certainly a great one. However, considering the number of armchair business analysts on HN I'm shocked that nobody seems to call out Gabriel for appearing to fall into a cliched trap: "we don't track you" isn't a product, it's a feature. I genuinely wonder what DDG would do if Google simply addressed all of their referrer privacy issues. Then wh…

Privacy is just but one aspect of DuckDuckGo: http://duckduckgo.com/about.html http://duckduckgo.com/goodies.html

I spend the vast majority of my time improving the search experience. I would welcome you trying it for a week and giving me your feedback!

I would love it if Google reacted to this by stopping this search leakage.

Re: DuckDuckGo Challenges Google on Privacy (With a Billboard in San Francisco)

#72

Post by epi0Bauqu »

gojomo wrote: post #64
epi0Bauqu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get that info via Google's Webmaster Tools: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

So if Google blurs referrers by default, instead of just people who opt for HTTPS search, but then more webmasters become more tightly bound to Google Webmaster Tools for necessary analytics, is that a net win for consumers and search engine diversity? I doubt most webmasters will endeavor to learn N different webmaster control panels, so this recommendation further advantages the leader. Google might very well respo…

That would be a fine outcome from my perspective.

Re: DuckDuckGo Challenges Google on Privacy (With a Billboard in San Francisco)

#74

Post by kmfrk »

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #23
klochner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also a slightly different case - google passing on your search terms to the website that you click through to. You may trust google with knowing that you searched for "naked bieber pics", but you may not want other websites also knowing your search habits.

You're free to opt out at any time: http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/

Not if you use Opera.

Re: DuckDuckGo Challenges Google on Privacy (With a Billboard in San Francisco)

#76

Post by epi0Bauqu »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #19
klochner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also a slightly different case - google passing on your search terms to the website that you click through to. You may trust google with knowing that you searched for "naked bieber pics", but you may not want other websites also knowing your search habits.

Are they passing on search terms for previous searches or just the current search? In your (frankly terrifying) example, would the site have had to have ranked for "naked bieber pics", showing up in the results and then you click it to pull the search terms? Because that would seem to be pretty innocuous.

Just the current search, but the problem is millions of pages run third-party ads, and most are run by very few networks. These ad networks can aggregate the terms and then they have previous searches as well.

Re: DuckDuckGo Challenges Google on Privacy (With a Billboard in San Francisco)

#77

Post by j_baker »

seabee wrote: post #44
sorbus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am fairly sure that the issue is the browser passing on the referrer, not that Google is making websites aware of any additional information. I might be wrong, of course; there's a lot of FUD about this floating around.

The browser does it, and did it long before Google existed.

I'm curious if it's possible to write a Firefox plugin that would block the HTTP-REFERRER header for certain sites.

Re: DuckDuckGo Challenges Google on Privacy (With a Billboard in San Francisco)

#78

Post by aperiodic »

cmelbye wrote: post #18
latch wrote: post #12

I know this comes up every now and again...but I find the length of the domain name a barrier to entry. I think building a brand around "DuckDuckGo" is an upward battle.

This is one of the biggest reasons I don't use DuckDuckGo yet. Seems trivial, but for me it's certainly a barrier to entry. I'd say the second biggest reason is the annoying user interface (gaudy effects like large lime green backgrounds when you roll over search results, etc.)

DuckDuckGo does have a very annoying default color scheme. Fortunately you can turn it off in the settings page: http://duckduckgo.com/settings.html.

Re: DuckDuckGo Challenges Google on Privacy (With a Billboard in San Francisco)

#79

Post by aperiodic »

hrabago wrote: post #20
cmelbye wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the biggest reasons I don't use DuckDuckGo yet. Seems trivial, but for me it's certainly a barrier to entry. I'd say the second biggest reason is the annoying user interface (gaudy effects like large lime green backgrounds when you roll over search results, etc.)

> I'd say the second biggest reason is the annoying user interface DuckDuckGo is the first website that made me want to install a browser plugin to change the way the page looks. (As for other websites that had a look I didn't like, I simply stopped visiting them.) The problem with installing plugins, though, is that I use several browsers on several computers, and to get a consistent look, I'd have to customize all…

You can customize a fair amount DuckDuckGo's UI using the settings page[1], most notably hover highlighting, color scheme, and header placement (fixed vs scrolling).

[1]: http://duckduckgo.com/settings.html

Re: DuckDuckGo Challenges Google on Privacy (With a Billboard in San Francisco)

#80

Post by moultano »

mahmud wrote: post #43
truebosko wrote: post #6

Is the whole privacy on search thing really a big issue? I, for one, want Google to be all Orwellian on me because it will mean better search results. I had a scenario like this a few days ago when I googled for "fabric" -- Being a Python developer I was looking for http://fabfile.org and it shows up as the second result while logged in. If I'm not, it won't show up. This may be the outlier state of mind on HN, but I…

Is the whole privacy on search thing really a big issue? Yes it is, if you're a political activist. Both Yahoo and Google have a proven history spying on people on behalf of government.

>Both Yahoo and Google have a proven history spying on people on behalf of government.

[citation needed]

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