SpywareWatchdog/articles/duckduckgo.html

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<link rel="stylesheet" href="/style.css">
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<title>Spyware Watchdog</title>
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<h1>DuckDuckGo</h1>
<p><a href="/articles">Back to catalog</a><br>
<a href="/articles/duckduckgo_es.html">Spanish Translation</a></p>
<img src="/images/ddg_logo.png" alt="DuckDuckGo logo">
<p>
DuckDuckGo is a search engine created by Gabriel Weinberg and owned by Duck Duck Go, Inc.
</p>
<h2>Spyware Level: <font color=greenyellow>Possible Spyware</font></h2>
<p>
DuckDuckGo is a search engine that claims to protect the privacy of its users.<sup><a href="#1">[1]</a></sup> Since this a centeralized service, there is no way to prove that it isnt spyware just by
looking at the technology that it uses. There are some red flags that could cause you to doubt that this service is truly private, and so this article will just list them
here to help you decide on whether or not to use this service. Ultimately there isn't proof that DuckDuckGo is spyware- but a few reasons to suspect it of being spyware. Even though, it's worth noting that
DuckDuckGo <b><font color="lime">offers an onion domain</font></b>... so you don't need to trust it to use it as long as you acess it through TOR.
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<h3>DuckDuckGo is hosted in the USA</h3>
<p>
Since the US Government has been known to compromise services similar to DuckDuckGo, its reasonable to fear that it might compromise DuckDuckGo.<sup><a href="#2">[2]</a></sup><sup><a href="#3">[3]</a></sup> We dont know if DuckDuckGo has
been compromised by the US Government, but we do know that it is not a difficult task for the US Government to do that.
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<h3>DuckDuckGo has violated its privacy policy in the past</h3>
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DuckDuckGo is not consistent with its prviacy policy and has directly violated it before.<sup><a href="#2">[2]</a></sup> If a service cannot follow its own privacy policy, then you can't expect it to protect
your privacy.
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<h3>Tracking pixels and other spyware</h3>
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DuckDuckGo uses clear gifs from the domain <code>improving.duckduckgo.com</code>. This is a tracking technique and can be used to collect analytics about your web browser.
Whenever you use DuckDuckGo, several requests will be sent to this domain.<sup><a href="#4">[4]</a></sup> This is of course not the kind of behavior that you would expect from a privacy concerned website, but there it is. Do you trust DuckDuckGo to collect "anonymous" analytics about you?
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<h2>Futher Reading</h2>
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<a href="https://8ch.net/tech/ddg.html">/tech/ FAQs - DuckDuckGo</a>
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180613130204/https://8ch.net/tech/ddg.html">[web.archive.org]</a>
<a href="http://archive.is/20150624075735/https://8ch.net/tech/ddg.html">[archive.is]</a>
<a href="http://www.webcitation.org/6i47Oqe9i">[www.webcitation.org]</a><br>
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<h2>Sources</h2>
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<a name="1">1.</a>
<a href="https://duckduckgo.com/privacy">DuckDuckGo Privacy Policy</a>
<a href="http://www.webcitation.org/6HQhjFsqo">[www.webcitation.org]</a>
<a href="http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20150815202623/https://duckduckgo.com//privacy">[arquivo.pt]</a>
<a href="https://archive.is/Pw6og">[archive.is]</a><br>
<a name="2">2.</a>
<a href="http://www.alexanderhanff.com/duckduckgone">Still trust DuckDuckGo? (dead link)</a>
<a href="https://archive.is/qntuk#selection-227.0-243.124">[archive.is]</a>
<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160224072914/https://archive.is/qntuk">[web.archive.org]</a><br>
<a name="3">3.</a>
<a href="/translations/duckduckgo_article.html">DuckDuckGo: The mistaken belief of the NSA-safe search engine</a>*<br>
<a name="4">4.</a>
<a href="https://duck.co/help/privacy/atb">Site Improvements</a>
<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20180909162803/https://duck.co/help/privacy/atb">[web.archive.org]</a><br>
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<p>
*This is a machine-translated mirror of an article written in German hosted here. Links to the original article can be found on that page.
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<p><b>
This article was last edited on 9/16/2018
</b></p>
<p>
If you want to edit this article, or contribute your own article(s), email me at <a href="mailto:spyware@aaathats3as.com">spyware@aaathats3as.com</a>. All contributions must be liscenced under the CC0 liscence to be accepted.
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<a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode"><img src="/images/cc0.png" alt="CC0 Liscence"></a>
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