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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)

#121

Post by Matt_Cutts »

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #69
seabee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That doesn't mean Google couldn't or shouldn't prevent the browser from doing it. When this all started, no one envisioned ad networks and data companies aggregating all this personal information, or even that search terms would be a central part of the Internet. So now that we know what is going on, why allow this personal information to leak? As far as I can tell, the only reason is so Webmasters can do better at G…

"And that reason can be wholly mitigated through the use of Google's Webmaster Tools."

No, Google's webmaster tools only provide a sampling of the data. We used to provide info for only 100 queries. Now we provide it for more queries, but it's still a sample: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-data...

Please don't make the argument that the data in our webmaster console is equivalent to the data that websites can currently find in their server logs, because that's not the case.

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

#122

Post by jdp23 »

pedanticfreak wrote: post #50

Anyone else think there should be a DuckDuckGo of browsers that is similarly proactive about privacy? There way more ways than just cookies to track people nowadays and it's about time we implemented default behavior in the browser to block them. There's no reason to wait for Google or Mozilla to do it for us either.

Excellent point. There's a great opportunity for somebody enterprising to take the lead here and get a lot of press for it.

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

#123

Post by jorgem »

jdp23 wrote: post #120
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…

i don't think it's an outlier state of mind at all ... in fact at this stage the majority of people in the US aren't concerned about search privacy. but, y'know, DuckDuckGo doesn't have to get the majority of people. with their incredibly low costs, if they can get their search market share to even 1%, they can be hugely profitable. and there are at least that many people who care.

How does ddg make money, anyway?

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

#124

Post by prawn »

mcantor wrote: post #68
prawn wrote: post #66

For anyone that just wants to see what the billboard looks like and isn't interested in the article: http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/epicenter/2011/01/ddg_bill...

Couldn't those people just click on the link, look at the picture of the billboard and then close the window? Not being sarcastic... that's what I did.

I'm sure I'm not alone in that I read HN comments before I hit an article, often because so many articles are linkbait, misleading, lacking content, overly saturated in ads, etc. I very, very rarely click through to TechCrunch articles, for example, as they're rarely satisfying.

If the comments suggest the article is especially worth reading, then I'll click on. If they don't say much about the article itself or suggest that it's not worth the click, I feel as though I haven't rewarded average behaviour with that page view.

In this case, I checked the HN comments for a direct link to the image because that's honestly all I wanted to see - the design and wording of the billboard. I didn't want the article, comments, masthead, everything else that comes with a news site pageload these days. I use AdBlock so the ads weren't going to reward the site owner and I'd just be chewing up extra bandwidth. When I didn't see a link to the image, I wondered if anyone else might've been looking for one too and thought I'd put one up. Easy to click for those who wanted it, easy to ignore for everyone else.

I assume the couple of downvotes are people thinking along your lines, or being against deep-linking?

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

#126

Post by dschobel »

mahmud wrote: post #117
dschobel wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"spying on people" is a really unfair way to describe what happens when you voluntarily share your information with a third party who is in turn subpoenaed. You should be taking issue with the governments demanding the records rather than expecting these companies to break the law on your behalf.

Where do you draw the line? what governments is google allowed to hand over information to vs which ones it can deny?

The simple answer is wherever they have operations. I don't think it is unreasonable to say that if you are going to run ops within a country you implicitly have to follow the law of the land.

That being said, thinking they shouldn't be in a particular country which obligates them to do these things is a much more sound position than just saying they shouldn't follow the law in a few particular cases.

Ultimately, if you know they are operating in a country with a government which likes to do these sorts of things, caveat utilitor. (At least, try not to look so surprised when the police come knocking.)

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

#127

Post by dschobel »

awakeasleep wrote: post #119
dschobel wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"spying on people" is a really unfair way to describe what happens when you voluntarily share your information with a third party who is in turn subpoenaed. You should be taking issue with the governments demanding the records rather than expecting these companies to break the law on your behalf.

Few spies self-identify as someone who hurts innocent people. They think of themselves as supporting their family while helping their government or something. Don't focus on what nouns different parts of the spying apparatus choose to label themselves with, or what other functions they serve. Instead, consider their effects in the context of being a spying apparatus.

But how is it spying if you use the service voluntarily, they tell you exactly that they collect and often (always?) let you opt out of the collection.

That's a really diluted standard for "spying".

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

#129

Post by jarek »

ezalor wrote: post #116
jarek wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely whether or not the RFC's authors know how to spell a word has no bearing on how sensible it is to correct the spelling of "HTTP_REFERER"? I mean, if dools had said "HTTP referer" then you might have had a point, but "HTTP_REFERER" unambiguously refers to the name of the header field.

No need to be pedant dude.

At the risk of taking the joke too far, "pedant" is a noun and requires an article preceding it.

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

#130

Post by alnayyir »

citricsquid wrote: post #58
jjcm wrote: post #55

A quick (and perhaps slightly offtopic) question, what's DDG's revenue model? Is it just an experiment right now, and if so how is Gabriel funding this?

He has an about me page somewhere, but he sold a business a while back for a relatively large amount and I assume he could live off that forever, so money certainly isn't a concern for him. Edit: found the info, $10m - http://investor.untd.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=328835

It's rather telling that he gets to work on DDG on his own terms from Pennsylvania.

(I'm a coder that pines for mudding and visible stars, so the fact that my career choices are NYC/SF is disheartening at times.)

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