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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)

#171

Post by sid3k »

iamelgringo wrote: post #155
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? Of course it is. Google and Facebook have been pushing the bounds of privacy repeatedly over the years because it is in their financial best interest to do so. Their primary product isn't search or communication or maps. Their product is plain and simple people's personal information. And, becuase they are a corporation in the USA they are legally bound to maxi…

If the goal is privacy, there are many search engines respecting privacy already. The goal is better search results!

Since I don't have a Google account and ban many evil domain names such as googleanalytics.com, facebook.com, they can't track my information already. for me, there is no need to use a search engine with crappy user interface.

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

#172

Post by rms »

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 think it's a red herring, but enough people take it seriously for this to be brilliant PR on the part of Gabriel.

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

#173

Post by yequalsx »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #163
iamelgringo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the whole privacy on search thing really a big issue? Of course it is. Google and Facebook have been pushing the bounds of privacy repeatedly over the years because it is in their financial best interest to do so. Their primary product isn't search or communication or maps. Their product is plain and simple people's personal information. And, becuase they are a corporation in the USA they are legally bound to maxi…

> they are legally bound to maximize shareholder value Can you point to a single instance where a company was forced to commit some act that its managers reasonably thought was morally wrong because of the "law" that companies must maximize shareholder value? Personally I think this trope has no basis in fact and cannot explain why Google or any other company is compelled to do things that are wrong. There are many p…

"Can you point to a single instance where a company was forced to commit some act that its managers reasonably thought was morally wrong because of the "law" that companies must maximize shareholder value?"

I can point to companies that sell tainted drugs, products that contain lead paint, that dump toxic materials in rivers, do shoddy work on oil wells, etc. They don't do this because they are required to maximize shareholder value. They do it because of their pursuit of money. The difference isn't a meaningful one in my mind.

I think if the law was changed and companies were forced to consider societal interest then perhaps things would change for the better. Perhaps not. As it is, the law is a bad one in my opinion.

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

#174

Post by VMG »

chrisbroadfoot wrote: post #84
seabee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yep - if you don't want people seeing your bieberqueries, you should use SSL Google: https://encrypted.google.com/ ... or if you're super paranoid, disable sending referrer in your browser.

This.

Its silly to rely on trusting the search engine provider to be secure, better be secure on the client side.

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

#175

Post by mattmanser »

scrrr wrote: post #145
epi0Bauqu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn't Incognito browsing, like present in Chrome, remedy all these worries?

People find ways around it, for example for a while Flash didn't respect incognito so ad networks just used their cookies instead (I think at one point html5 storage was being used too, but could be wrong).

There's been various HN posts about how people circumvent browser privacy settings to track you across websites and even tricks such as generating an almost unique key by hashing together browser, fonts installed, IP address, etc.. I'm not sure of the current state of play in that war though.

I guess if you really don't want people to track private searches with your accounts, use a whole other browser where you're not logged into Google in incognito mode.

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

#176

Post by jonknee »

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #71
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.

I changed to Duck Duck Go in Chrome a couple weeks ago to do just this and didn't make it past three days. I was looking forward to getting rid of content mills (which was the reason I wanted to try DDG for a week), but the lack of things like local results and search completion drove me absolutely batty.

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

#177

Post by b3n »

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.)

Try http://dukgo.com/lite

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

#178

Post by gawker »

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #71
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.

My mates installed it for me and I didn't make it past the first day. Search results wasn't accurate enough for me so I went back to Google.

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

#179

Post by gawker »

Sargis wrote: post #136
jorgem wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does ddg make money, anyway?

The search results to amazon are affiliate links. I'mbassuming they have other methods to get revenue as well.

Are they just aggregating search results from various websites and putting it all together into one package?

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

#180

Post by epi0Bauqu »

gawker wrote: post #178
epi0Bauqu wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My mates installed it for me and I didn't make it past the first day. Search results wasn't accurate enough for me so I went back to Google.

Thx--would appreciate you sending me queries that didn't work for you (if you can recall any you're willing to share): http://duckduckgo.com/feedback.html

Always trying to improve!

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