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DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

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Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#181

Post by jakub_g »

DavideNL wrote: post #177
nunobrito wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a software auditor in Europe (per times consulting the European commission itself), mostly for open source licenses but also for cybersec and privacy matters. This topic with DDG is recurring since years. You cannot verify the infrastructure, it is not hosted on EU-bounded servers and they have been asked for cooperation. Nothing moved as far I follow. With Ecosia you are right. The point is that Ecosia accountab…

What do you think about Startpage? And, which European search engine would you recommend?

Startpage was acquired by an adtech company a few months ago https://www.ghacks.net/2019/11/16/startpage-search-owner-cha...

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#183

Post by ryuukk_ »

Fat_Thor wrote: post #26

I would like to see Mozilla Firefox be forced to do the same. As of now, they don't even notify the user of their default Google search to the users. So millions of their user url typing history are being recorded and sent to Google even if they don't use the search function specifically. This in someway has to violates the GDPR.

mozilla doesn't have millions of users, it is in the X00k

and they depend on selling data, without that, they get no money, they sell their users to google, and then pretend to care about "privacy", their financial privacy, probably ;)

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#184

Post by Kiro »

raverbashing wrote: post #175
adgasf wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A short cookie with a browser fingerprint will be enough for tracking.

Cool, are they calling APIs that give fingerprinting data? Using tracking images? Because unless you have evidence they're abusing their data collection (as, you know, a lot of websites do) I'm not buying the FUD.

What makes you blindly trust DDG and give them the benefit of doubt compared to other companies?

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#185

Post by AdamSC1 »

blululu wrote: post #76

Something that doesn't sit well with me about DuckDuckGo is their hidden use of affiliate links to Amazon and eBay. Fundamentally search engines are vulnerable to predatory business models. Privacy is one issue. Providing financially motivated information is another. To my knowledge (would love to hear more), Google is pretty up front about what is an ad and what isn't while DuckDuckGo covertly sells you to Amazon wh…

Hi blululu,

You'll notice when you search for an item like "Airpods" the shopping instant answer appears including products from Amazon.

The top right of that placement (https://i.imgur.com/EIpFjVR.png) you'll see it is noted that this is an ad. These links are eligible for affiliate commission as outlined in our help pages (https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/company/ad...). Even in this situation, no personally identifiable information is shared with Amazon.

Amazon links that appear in the organic results are not affiliated.

eBay links that appear in the organic results may be affiliated. As per our policy, this has no impact on their organic ranking or appearance - and no information is shared with eBay.

We agree that general skepticism is healthy, and try to make clear that any element which has its placement changed, or elevated because of a financial incentive is labelled as an ad.

If there is something unclear about that, we'd always love to hear more user feedback!

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#186

Post by AdamSC1 »

skrebbel wrote: post #111
gempir wrote: post #93

I personally hope DDG is going to namechange soon. I don't hate their name, but if you present the user with a choice of - Google - DuckDuckGo - Yandex Why would he click the "silly" option besides humor. It's a bad brand name IMO

It's also not very well targeted at global reach. I mean, I assume it's a reference to something in some language / locale? Or, is the humor just super absurdist, i.e. they might've called it ShoeShoeEat and it would've been equally "humorous"? Assuming the first, it simply means they never imagined being used by people other than (I guess) Americans. Which is unfortunate, but forgiveable. It's also a terrible finger…

You can use duck.com

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#187

Post by mikorym »

nunobrito wrote: post #121

DuckDuckGo is only private if you trust their word. Over the years they continue to refuse access for a trusted third-party auditor to review their infrastructure and validate (or not) their claims of privacy. The preference of Android to place DDG in Europe (31 out of 31 countries) is strange when considering privacy as argument. Then is placed this "info.com" as second option on all European countries (31 out of 31…

Can't we have an open source search engine with publicly sourced "indices"? Anyone who wants can then crawl the web and build a graph of parts of the internet. The search part and the crawling code would be open source. What's the problem?

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#188

Post by AdamSC1 »

dantondwa wrote: post #120

I can't recommend DDG to friends in Europe until they fix their quick actions and translate them in other languages. It's not acceptable that to look for the weather in Rome I have to write "weather Rome" because "meteo Roma" doesn't bring the quick action up. Also, the local results are very bad, unfortunately.

Thanks for the feedback - I've made sure this is logged internally.

It looks like it may have been an edge case around capitalization where "meteo roma" was working and "meteo Roma" wasn't.

We can only find cases like this when users report them - so if you run into one again, feel free to use the feedback button on the bottom-right hand side of the screen! :)

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#189

Post by AdamSC1 »

lucb1e wrote: post #15

I still feel like Google should participate in the bidding and distribute the resulting money (their own and their competitors') to a charity rather than keeping it as profit. They got a fine for a reason, turning it into a profit scheme is a big middle finger to anyone who cares about monopolies. The question would be how to pick a charity in an unbiased manner, but I guess there are a lot of ways to answer that suc…

Or, simply not try and skirt EU anti-trust regulation by a pay-to-play bidding system.

DuckDuckGo tweet thread + link to research on choice screens: https://twitter.com/DuckDuckGo/status/1215307399978016774

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#190

Post by ForHackernews »

Kiro wrote: post #184
raverbashing wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, are they calling APIs that give fingerprinting data? Using tracking images? Because unless you have evidence they're abusing their data collection (as, you know, a lot of websites do) I'm not buying the FUD.

What makes you blindly trust DDG and give them the benefit of doubt compared to other companies?

You mean compared to Google and Facebook?

DDG is a tiny company that owes its small measure of success to building and maintaining a good reputation among devs and other tech-savvy, privacy-conscious users.

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