We have been very clear for years that companies like Google or Microsoft collect a lot of data when we use their internet search engines. They live in a good part of it, after all, so when an alternative like DuckDuckGo appeared focused on protecting our privacy, many of us ended up using it and felt a little more protected. Now it turns out that they too have ended up betraying that promise to some extent.
What happened. In the past week it was discovered that DuckDuckGo (DDG) has an agreement with Microsoft that prevents them from blocking certain Microsoft trackers. The CEO of the company, Gabriel Weinberg, explained that in their browser they cannot block all of Microsoft’s because of a “search syndication agreement” that prevents them from doing so.
That deal has another problem: It doesn’t allow DuckDuckGo to elaborate on what they can and can’t block, so we can’t be sure how well the service actually protects us in that relationship with Redmond.
But you’re still anonymous. The controversy that arose made Weinberg want to clarify the issue further, and he stressed that by using his search engine, the user remains anonymous even for the ads that can be presented among the results. Third party cookies are also blocked in your browser “including those from Microsoft platforms”.
There are other protection mechanisms that DDG also applies even to Microsoft, such as the anti-fingerprinting system. the expiration of third-party cookies or the handling of cookie consent. The only thing they do by that agreement is to prevent “Microsoft’s own scripts from being loaded”, although even there they say that they apply post-load protections, such as blocking those aforementioned third-party cookies. admitted Weinberg “our product is not perfect.”
Actually this was already known (a little). DuckDuckGo itself has long explained on its support website how “we have partnered with many sources of information to provide DuckDuckGo Search results (for example, Microsoft for advertising, Apple for maps, etc).
They highlighted how “Microsoft and DuckDuckGo have collaborated to provide a search solution that delivers relevant advertising while protecting your privacy.” In this system, dependent on Microsoft Advertising, our IP address and the ‘user-agent’ string that identifies our team are used to “correctly process the click on the ad and charge the advertiser”.
It’s bad? The difference, they explain in DDG, is that other search engines associate your behavior when clicking on advertising with a profile about you that can be used later to offer you ads in that search engine on the Internet. In the Microsoft and DDG system, the Microsoft Advertising system “does not associate your behavior when advertising with a user profile. It also does not store or share information beyond “accounting purposes” (to charge the advertiser, as we said before). ).
Total privacy does not exist. Weinberg ended by saying that “nothing can protect you 100%” and commented how in the end the limitations of each platform make DuckDuckGo’s job difficult. “That’s why,” he concluded, “we’ve always been very careful never to promise anonymity when browsing outside of our search engine, because frankly it’s not possible. However, I think what we offer is the best there is for users. ordinary users who want easy privacy protection without breaking anything, and that’s our vision for the product.”
Loss of confidence. That message and Weinberg’s quick response is welcome, but many users on social networks complained that in the end “tracking is tracking” and criticized DuckDuckGo for not making the terms of that agreement with Microsoft more public, which ended up being discovered by a cybersecurity expert.
In DDG they added that they are working to eliminate that exception that they do with Microsoft, but it is not known when and if they will be able to do it effectively. In the end, as this user explained, there has been some loss of trust and disappointment with a search engine and a company that has not been 100% honest with the way their search engine and browser work.
Image | Dawit
