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DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

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Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#281

Post by sillysaurusx »

a3n wrote: post #266
abrookewood wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the correct answer. We all remember "Do No Evil" and have been around long enough to see that sentiment die. Don't go down this path.

They've already started down that path, judging by all the DDG billboards I see driving my 18 wheeler around the country, and all the DDG ads I hear on NPR-related podcasts. Not that I'm against making money. But there's a tipping point associated with some height value in a pile of cash, and once you cross that point then the pile controls you. DDG probably hasn't crossed that point yet, but self-justification is on…

Are there really DDG ads on billboards and NPR? That’s cool.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#282

Post by bluehatbrit »

niftylettuce wrote: post #46

Formerly worked with DuckDuckGo My advice: Install ungoogled-chromium: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium Install these extensions: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock https://github.com/ilGur1132/Smart-HTTPS There is also a Chromium extension that lets you install from Chrome Web Store: https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store Set duckduckgo.com as your default search engine with a blank home page.…

Your "Security harden your mac" guide has a bunch of amazon affiliate links, it would be good to call that out when piggybacking on a post about privacy at least.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#283

Post by sillysaurusx »

raxxorrax wrote: post #259
jacquesm wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Gabriel know about this? If not could you please clue him in and get some guidance because you are absolutely getting roasted here and are wrecking DDG's carefully built up reputation. I can easily see how this might seem to be a good idea to you and other DDG engineers but it goes 180 degrees against DDG's stated mission. In other words: you may be well outside your paygrade on this.

> you may be well outside your paygrade on this. Not as worse as publicly denouncing an honest engineer while referencing his paygrade. I hope there is no affiliation you have with DDG to be honest, because this is much, much worse.

What do you mean? This response is fine. It’s honest feedback, and it isn’t a personal swipe to say it’s above someone’s pay grade to be responding to a PR crisis as an honest engineer.

I was once an honest engineer too, publicly. Being honest in private is enough for me now. It’s a lesson worth learning.

That said, it’s not like a single HN comment will make or break a company, so if they’re really just a rank-and-file engineer, I hope the company won’t come down on them too hard. A simple “don’t do that” would suffice.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#284

Post by rezonant »

tagawa wrote: post #52

DuckDuckGo staff here. As mentioned in the linked page, the purpose of the request is to retrieve a website's favicon so that it can be displayed in certain places within the app or on the results page. We use an internal favicon service because it can be complicated to locate a favicon for a website. They can be stored in a variety of locations and in a variety of formats. The service understands these edge cases an…

Doubling down is fairly ridiculous when one has to imagine the original reason for doing this was to save on time and engineering for the app by leveraging what DDG had already built, but a mindful response would be that you are aware of the downsides of this approach and you'll be working to change it.

Besides, how do you handle Intranet, VPN sites, and auth-only sites where DDG's god-tier favicon parser in the cloud couldn't fetch the URL anyway?

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#285

Post by dvdkhlng »

warpspin wrote: post #269
dvdkhlng wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In germany we have the words "Datensparsamkeit" (data parsimony) and "Datenvermeidung" (data prevention) [1]. Which wikipedia merely translates as "Privacy by design" [2]. DDG is unneccessaryly producing (aggregating), transmitting (and collecting?) very sensitive user data here, which is just the opposite of data protection. I can't even understand why they try to justify their actions. It's like omitting the seat-b…

In fact I think what they do here is illegal by GDPR. It does not matter that they say they do not collect the information, it is enough it is unnecessarily sent to their servers to make the whole function illegal. The transmission of ip address alone, which is necessary for the TCP request to happen, deanonymizes the request enough to not be considered anonymous within the GDPR framework. GDPR Article 5 (1) c: "Pers…

Yes it does not look very GDPR conformant. They may try to argue that the transmission of visited domain names serves a purpose (browser performance) and that the user agreed to that transmission by accepting the TOS etc. However, I think they may be in trouble as consent for data processing under GDPR needs to be given "freely" [1]:

"When assessing whether consent is freely given, utmost account shall be taken of whether, [..] the performance of a contract[..] is conditional on consent to the processing of personal data that is not necessary for the performance of that contract."

As DDG's favicon-hack is not strictly neccessary for operating the DDG-browser, DDG would need to give users the option to opt-out of the favicon-retrieval, otherwise they may have "forced" the users to consent to the data processing, thereby voiding that consent as far as the GDPR is concerned.

[1] https://gdpr.eu/gdpr-consent-requirements/

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#286

Post by izietto »

tagawa wrote: post #52

DuckDuckGo staff here. As mentioned in the linked page, the purpose of the request is to retrieve a website's favicon so that it can be displayed in certain places within the app or on the results page. We use an internal favicon service because it can be complicated to locate a favicon for a website. They can be stored in a variety of locations and in a variety of formats. The service understands these edge cases an…

You are just repeating what's already written in the link, it isn't very useful. Try to address users' concerns instead.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#287

Post by im3w1l »

abc-xyz wrote: post #203
dabbernaught420 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view, anyone who trusts ddg is a bit silly - founder has a bad track record on user privacy. Founded Names Database[1], a social media website designed to collect user information as aggressively as possible, before selling all the information to classmates.com. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_Database

Also worth mentioning they're closed-source, US-based and for-profit. Why exactly do people trust them? Simply because they write a few articles/ads saying "privacy is important"? If you're willing to sacrifice search quality for privacy, as in switching from Google to DuckDuckGo, then you might as well take a step further and switch from Google to Searx/Ask.Moe.

> Why exactly do people trust them?

Because they have a good privacy policy. They would face legal consequences if they were lying. Nation state actors can presumably override privacy polices but it's better than nothing.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#288

Post by zzo38computer »

tagawa wrote: post #52

DuckDuckGo staff here. As mentioned in the linked page, the purpose of the request is to retrieve a website's favicon so that it can be displayed in certain places within the app or on the results page. We use an internal favicon service because it can be complicated to locate a favicon for a website. They can be stored in a variety of locations and in a variety of formats. The service understands these edge cases an…

Does it have an option to disable the internal favicon service and/or an option to disable favicons entirely? (I disable the favicons on my own computer, since I don't use them.)

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#289

Post by rightbyte »

dmitrygr wrote: post #41
bangonkeyboard wrote: post #10

EDIT: I didn't notice that this topic was about the DDG browser (which I didn't know existed) and responded assuming this was about the site/extension. For a browser, yes, a client-side solution is possible and probably preferable. Please check and upvote other comment trees. This makes sense to me and is not alarming. Getting favicons actually is difficult to do robustly; many applications and websites use Google's…

> Putting this logic in the client is not feasible Wait, what? Why?

They have to be lying?

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#290

Post by warpspin »

dvdkhlng wrote: post #285
warpspin wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact I think what they do here is illegal by GDPR. It does not matter that they say they do not collect the information, it is enough it is unnecessarily sent to their servers to make the whole function illegal. The transmission of ip address alone, which is necessary for the TCP request to happen, deanonymizes the request enough to not be considered anonymous within the GDPR framework. GDPR Article 5 (1) c: "Pers…

Yes it does not look very GDPR conformant. They may try to argue that the transmission of visited domain names serves a purpose (browser performance) and that the user agreed to that transmission by accepting the TOS etc. However, I think they may be in trouble as consent for data processing under GDPR needs to be given "freely" [1]: "When assessing whether consent is freely given, utmost account shall be taken of wh…

You are completely right about the not "freely given" aspect. But well, it already breaks down at the "informed" aspect.

Their appstore pages link to the generic privacy policy of the company instead of for the browser specifically. This alone will usually already NOT be accepted by the supervisory authorities at least in Germany - the Landesdatenschutzaufsichten usually require a product specific privacy policy being linked for it being valid (personal experience), or at least making clear in the general policy what applies to the product, what not. And as mentioned, the fact visited domains are sent to the DDG servers (also outside the European Union) was not mentioned at all in that policy when I looked some minutes ago.

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