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What Is DuckDuckGo?

In recent months and years the world’s largest technology companies have attracted increasing levels of government scrutiny related to their ability to spy on users, track everyday activities, geographically follow people, and other issues related to individual level of privacy. This applies to Google, Facebook, Instagram, and many other companies. Facebook is attempting to create a new monetary system that it controls, and this is getting the attention of various governments around the world.

In fact, the Department of Justice recently highlighted plans for a broad antitrust review of what they term “Big Tech”. We don’t know what will come of this or if it is merely theater to assuage the public, but the facts are that big tech is under fire.

What Is DuckDuckGo?

DuckDuckGo is a search engine much like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex. DuckDuckGo does not yet use its own calculations and algos for search as it piggybacks on the APIs of existing search engines. The company launched on September 25, 2008. You can use it with Android, Firefox, extensions, and as a web browser like you would any other.

DuckDuckGo is experiencing very rapid growth, although its market share overall is still quite small relative to Google. The search engine emphasizes privacy and the fact that it does not have to track user activity and behavior in order to make money. There is always disruption in technology. There was MySpace before Facebook and now we have TikTok and Telegram. Things evolve and change. Remember HIFW you had to code in Linux?

Statistics show that in Q2 of 2019 DuckDuckGo was the only major search engine to see a growth in organic searches. Even google’s organic searches were down 8% overall. There is also lots of data mounting up indicating that about half of organic searches on Google end up as “no click searches”, meaning Google provided the answer in the SERPs or directed the user to a Google property. This has huge implications for publishers.

In September of 2020, DuckDuckGo scored a big win when it became a choice on the Android OS in Europe. Consumers could opt in easily to make it their default search engine.

Will consumers move more towards the privacy first model espoused by DuckDuckGo? Time will tell, but the facts thus far show that DuckDuckGo is indeed growing TBH. IKR, maybe time for people to drop the OMG and GIF and MEME and claw back their online privacy.

How Does DuckDuckGo Make Money?

Although the firm does not spy and sell your data, there are paid search ads like you see on other search engines such as Ecosia or Yandex. This brings in some money. We don’t yet know if DuckDuckGo will incorporate Bitcoin or Tezos or do something like Brave is doing, but time will tell.

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