[HN Gopher] Bing contract prohibits DuckDuckGo from completely b...
___________________________________________________________________
Bing contract prohibits DuckDuckGo from completely blocking
Microsoft tracking
Author : etamponi
Score : 365 points
Date : 2022-05-24 11:10 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| yegg wrote:
| This title is very misleading (and really should be changed).
|
| This is not about search. To be clear, when you load our search
| results, you are completely anonymous, including ads. For ads, we
| actually worked with Microsoft to make ad clicks privacy
| protected as well. From our public ads page, "Microsoft
| Advertising does not associate your ad-click behavior with a user
| profile." This page is linked to next to every Microsoft ad that
| is served on our search engine (duckduckgo.com).
| https://help.duckduckgo.com/company/ads-by-microsoft-on-duck....
|
| In all our browsing apps (iOS/Android/Mac) we also block third-
| party cookies, including those from Microsoft-owned properties
| like LinkedIn and Bing. That is, the privacy thing most people
| talk about on the web (blocking 3rd party cookies) applies here
| to MSFT. We also have a lot of other web protections that also
| apply to MSFT-owned properties as well, e.g., GPC, first-party
| cookie expiration, fingerprinting protection, referrer header
| trimming, cookie consent handling, fire button data clearing,
| etc.
|
| This is just about non-DuckDuckGo and non-Microsoft sites in our
| browsers, where our search syndication agreement currently
| prevents us from stopping Microsoft-owned scripts from loading,
| though we can still apply our browser's protections post-load
| (like 3rd party cookie blocking and others mentioned above, and
| do). We've also been tirelessly working behind the scenes to
| change this limited restriction. I also understand this is
| confusing because it is a search syndication contract that is
| preventing us from doing a non-search thing. That's because our
| product is a bundle of multiple privacy protections, and this is
| a distribution requirement imposed on us as part of the search
| syndication agreement. Our syndication agreement also has broad
| confidentially provisions and the requirement documents
| themselves are explicitly marked confidential.
|
| Taking a step back, I know our product is not perfect and will
| never be. We face many constraints: platform constraints,
| contractual constraints (like in this case), breakage
| constraints, and the evolving tracking arms race. Holistically
| though I believe it is the best thing out there for mainstream
| users who want simple privacy protection without breaking things,
| and that is our product vision.
|
| Overall our app is multi-pronged privacy protection in one
| package (private search, web protection, HTTPS upgrading, email
| protection, app tracking protection for Android, and more to
| come), being careful (and putting in a lot of effort) to not
| break things while still offering protections -- an "easy button"
| for privacy. And we constantly work to improve its capabilities
| and will continue to do so, including in this case. For example,
| we've recently been adding bespoke third-party protections for
| Google and Facebook, like Google AMP/Topics/FLEDGE protection and
| Facebook embedded content protection.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| OT but thanks for making DDG. I went out and discovered it on
| my own because i wasn't satisfied with Google Search (too much
| SEO results, not enough links to forums). But many thanks and i
| wish you the best of success.
| sitkack wrote:
| When the answer is so long, it belies the motivation and
| privacy guarantees.
|
| A shorter answer would have more credence.
|
| https://youtu.be/nzNL0b4d_WY?t=148
| Beltiras wrote:
| I just changed from DDG to Kagi and will probably pay them once
| out of Beta. So far I am very happy with the search results and
| I believe that the next innovation in search is it not being
| beholden to ads. DDG is not in the place where ads will corrupt
| your business but should you grow and be successful, you one
| day will be.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _> This is just about non-DuckDuckGo and non-Microsoft sites in
| our browsers, where our search syndication agreement currently
| prevents us from stopping Microsoft-owned scripts from loading_
|
| But this is exactly the problem. Sure, unlike Google DDG is not
| itself collecting data, and there appear to be limited tracking
| on MS properties, but unless I misunderstand the situation (a
| decent possibility) then the vast majority of the web, which
| are not MS sites, are still able to use MS scripts for
| tracking.
|
| You are marketing a privacy-centric ecosystems of tools but
| your partner in one component (search) is preventing you from
| implementing that vision in non-search areas, so that should be
| clear. It should also be clear that it's still very much a
| search problem. The source of the limitation has search as a
| root cause, and a massive corporation with just as much
| interest in obtaining data on user browsing habits is still
| able to do so in some ways.
|
| I admit this is still a better situation than Google, but
| you're providing an ecosystem of tools, they are inextricably
| linked with each other.
|
| I don't have any proposed solution. I'm not sure there needs to
| be one aside from making boundaries clear. I still see
| significant value in your offerings. Partnering with a provider
| of quality search that solves some but not all privacy issues
| is still valuable. Each person chooses their own level of
| comfort & tradeoffs between product quality & privacy, and you
| offer what I consider to be a valuable middle ground in that
| range. But let's just be clear on what the middle ground is
| made of, though I otherwise do not judge harshly for an
| agreement like this.
|
| Thank you for making great tools.
| derefr wrote:
| It is "independent from search" in the sense that people who
| just use DDG as a web search provider from any browser other
| than DDG's own will be unaffected by this constraint, and
| will browse just as anonymously as if this constraint was not
| imposed. (Which is to say: as anonymously as their browser
| enables for them, with DDG not being the limiting constraint.
| Not so anonymous for Chrome; much more anonymous for Brave /
| TorBrowser / etc.)
|
| All this constraint is doing is limiting the _increase_ in
| privacy you get from using the DDG mobile app _on top of_ the
| privacy you get from using the DDG web search provider. At
| worst, DDG searches in the DDG app will be no _less_ private
| than DDG searches done in any non-privacy-enforcing browser,
| e.g. Chrome. Which is to say--still pretty private.
|
| Also, I presume that only a minority of DDG users are users
| of the DDG mobile browser app. (I didn't even know it
| existed!)
| blinding-streak wrote:
| What is the real, tangible improvement to someone's life with
| all this claimed privacy protection? IE, when my mom asks why
| she should switch from Google, what would I tell her that would
| actually make a difference in her life?
| dazc wrote:
| She is far less likely to see an ad for a financial service
| which turns out to be a scam.
| gruez wrote:
| I don't see the connection here. Does duckduckgo/bing have
| more ethical advertisers? Are ads for "financial service
| which turns out to be a scam" dependent on tracking?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I think the "financial service which turns out to be a
| scam" ads target older people, especially women. I
| certainly don't get those ads.
| dazc wrote:
| You can see no ads. In default mode you see far less.
| yegg wrote:
| We have a page specifically about helping people switch:
| https://duckduckgo.com/spread
|
| To answer your question though, comprehensive privacy
| protection prevents data profiles from getting created about
| you, which in turn prevents ad and other content targeting.
| This targeting, regardless of how it's done, enables general
| manipulation (e.g., exploiting personal characteristics for
| commercial or political gain), filter bubbles (e.g., creating
| echo chambers that can divide people), and discrimination
| (e.g., people not seeing job opportunities based on personal
| profiles).
|
| More generally though, I view privacy as protecting you from
| coercion. Yes, it protects personal information, but that's
| not the real point. The real point is autonomy -- the freedom
| to make decisions without coercion. From this perspective in
| addition to helping reduce identity theft, commercial
| exploitation, ideological manipulation, discrimination,
| polarization, etc., it also helps reduce self-surveillance
| (i.e., chilling effects), and just general loss of freedom
| (e.g., mass surveillance).
| digisign wrote:
| It's a shame that page doesn't address the benefits you
| mention here eloquently. It basically just says we don't
| track you, and implies that is good. I do think it is good
| but it's losing the value prop for most people.
|
| Please put your second paragraph up at the top of that
| page, maybe with some bullet points and icons and I'll send
| out the URL.
| jeffbee wrote:
| > prevents ad and other content targeting
|
| You want me to pitch my mom on un-targeted advertising? How
| do you phrase it in practice? "On Google, you get evil ads
| relevant to you, such as restaurants near you. On Duck Duck
| Go your privacy is protected, so you get ads for
| restaurants in Omaha, Nebraska. Therefore you should switch
| to Duck Duck Go". Something like that?
|
| This comment is based on the actual results I was served by
| DDG for "best burger".
| guelo wrote:
| Your mom will have a better experience and more control
| if she learns to search for "best burger in <city name>"
| instead of trying to give the wheel to Google's mind
| reading AIs.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| That doesn't sound like a better experience to me.
| jeffbee wrote:
| _My_ mom is completely satisfied with Google, so we 're
| discussing some theoretical mom.
|
| I honestly do not understand the pitch, that's why I want
| to hear it from the horse's mouth. Scare words like
| "tracking" and "profile" and "targeting" are used by the
| privacy fear industry to disparage the practice of having
| implicit terms in your search query. These implicit terms
| greatly improve search quality, which is why the results
| on Google are so much better. Advertisements are their
| own separate search corpus where good ranking is desired
| and the implicit elements of the search vector are also
| helpful there. To me there can be no rational case made
| that omitting the implicit terms improves the quality of
| the result.
| oefrha wrote:
| Same. Tried to sell my mom on some privacy stuff, zero
| care. Tried to sell her on unique passwords and a
| password manager, zero care. And so on.
|
| Lots of people (most people?) want to do the bare minimum
| with computers. Sacrificing convenience for privacy or
| whatnot isn't something they would accept.
| guelo wrote:
| Google's search engine is awful. In case you hadn't
| noticed rants about it are increasingly popular. Part of
| the reason is that Google keeps taking away user's
| control of the tool, partly in the name of convenience
| but also to manipulate you, get you to click on favored
| links, show you ads or extend their search monopoly to
| other products.
|
| I'm not arguing that duckduckgo/bing are any better, just
| that these tracking convenience features have a dark side
| and many times work against your best interest.
| oefrha wrote:
| > rants about it are increasingly popular.
|
| 1. Never heard any rant about it outside tech circles.
|
| 2. I've given DDG many chances when Google failed to
| return satisfactory results. In those many cases DDG
| results were just about the same or even less relevant.
| Google changing the query? Well DDG either also changes
| it or returns irrelevant results not containing the query
| anyway.
|
| The single advantage of DDG I've noticed is that it
| doesn't CAPTCHA me on a VPN connection.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| The submitted title was "DuckDuckGo Paid by Microsoft to not
| block their trackers". We've changed it now. If anyone wants to
| suggest a better (i.e. more accurate and neutral) title, we can
| change it again.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > If anyone wants to suggest a better (i.e. more accurate and
| neutral) title, we can change it again.
|
| From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31492789:
|
| > "Bing search contract prohibits DDG browser from blocking
| Microsoft tracking scripts by default."
| dang wrote:
| That's too long to fit in 80 chars (HN's limit) and should
| probably macroexpand DDG.
|
| I've taken a crack at a shorter version. Thanks!
| worik wrote:
| "...on its App"
| zenexer wrote:
| > This is not about search.
|
| Yes, it is. Your competitors in the privacy-centric browser
| space don't have this restriction because they're not search
| engines acquiring the majority of their data from an entity
| with a conflicting interest.
|
| I'm inclined to blame Microsoft here; this is a nasty move on
| their part. However, your stance is problematic. This is a
| problem, and it's a serious one. It undermines trust in a
| product that claims to be the bastion of privacy. And
| statements like this...
|
| > Overall our app is multi-pronged privacy protection in one
| package (private search, web protection, HTTPS upgrading, email
| protection, app tracking protection for Android, and more to
| come), being careful (and putting in a lot of effort) to not
| break things while still offering protections -- an "easy
| button" for privacy.
|
| ...don't help the matter. To me, that just sounds like
| marketing mumbo jumbo. Ultimately, if a privacy-centric browser
| is contractually obligated to load tracking scripts and is
| required to avoid disclosing that fact, I want absolutely
| nothing to do with either party.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > To me, that just sounds like marketing mumbo jumbo.
|
| What's more helpful is to hear in which exact situations
| their blocking doesn't work.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >and is required to avoid disclosing that fact,
|
| Isn't this entire story about them disclosing this fact?
| zenexer wrote:
| > Isn't this entire story about them disclosing this fact?
|
| It seems to be, but they're claiming the details are
| confidential. It's rather confusing. I wonder whether
| Microsoft's intention was to prevent them from disclosing
| it altogether, or whether they just wanted to avoid the
| general details of the contract getting out (rather than
| this particular tidbit of info). I'm inclined to suspect it
| was the latter--just a general NDA. In any case, I don't
| like it.
| yegg wrote:
| No, it is not just a general NDA.
| mda wrote:
| One wonders what other juicy nuggets are in this non
| general NDA.
| bozhark wrote:
| DDG is a search engine to most people, nothing more.
|
| Just because other avenues exist doesn't mean people walk
| them
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Do you have any sources you can cite that Microsoft has
| breached contracts with companies in the past in an effort to
| get at your ID for advertisers? Otherwise, I would consider
| this a nothing burger.
| yegg wrote:
| We will work diligently today to find a way to say something
| in our app store descriptions in terms of a better disclosure
| -- will likely have something up by the end of the day.
|
| In terms of our app and multi-pronged protection, it isn't
| mumbo jumbo. Our app is way more than just a browser (and
| increasingly so). For example, the app tracking protection
| mentioned for Android blocks trackers in all your _other_
| apps. The email tracking protection blocks trackers in your
| email (that you read in your regular email client /app).
|
| I understand the concern here that we are working to address
| in a variety of ways, but to be clear no app will provide
| 100% protection for a variety of reasons, and the scripts in
| question here do currently have significant protection on
| them in our browser. From the comment "That is, the privacy
| thing most people talk about on the web (blocking 3rd party
| cookies) applies here to MSFT. We also have a lot of other
| web protections that also apply to MSFT-owned properties as
| well, e.g., GPC, first-party cookie expiration,
| fingerprinting protection, referrer header trimming, cookie
| consent handling, fire button data clearing, etc."
| colechristensen wrote:
| "multi-pronged privacy", "easy button", "capabilities", and
| repeated use of the word "protection" are all signals that
| what is being said is an attempt to sell me something and
| that the salesman should be doubted.
|
| What's actually happening is you're forced to allow
| Microsoft scripts which do indeed do telemetry on users
| despite some restrictions you put on them, and they're
| still effective because fingerprinting works. That fact is
| embarrassing for a product you're trying to sell as
| promoting privacy so there's this mildly deceptive attempt
| to hide what's going on with lots of words and claims of
| protection instead of straightforward disclosure.
| thrwawy283 wrote:
| Still coming to my own conclusion here, but I wouldn't
| dismiss "easy button" as marketing. We keep hoping for
| easy buttons and reasonable default settings in things
| like openssl or pgp. I do like organizations that
| understand an easy button is the safest default. Is that
| what we have here?
| colechristensen wrote:
| I'm commenting only on the rhetoric, calling it an "easy
| button" stinks of marketing BS. People desiring simple
| straightforward tools is a separate subject.
| leokennis wrote:
| Of course it's marketing. My mom doesn't want to set up
| uBlock and a script blocker and a Pihole. She'd love to
| click a button and be safer. What's the issue here?
| colechristensen wrote:
| That I am on HN and someone trying to convince me their
| company isn't being shady is using evasive marketing
| speak instead of candor to an audience that clearly knows
| better than to believe the weasel words.
| xchip wrote:
| We have a new marketing word: "multi-pronged protection"
| FabHK wrote:
| "Defense in depth" strikes me as a legitimate security
| technique.
|
| https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/bsi/articles/knowledge/princi
| ple...
| tedivm wrote:
| The thread by the security engineer shows that the scripts
| are communicating back to the servers. That means your
| multi-pronged protection has failed, unless you've suddenly
| discovered a way for browsers to block IP addresses from
| being sent by scripts (and since they can be extracted from
| the request itself that doesn't seem likely).
|
| That's why the ad blockers that stop the scripts from
| loading to begin with will always due a much better job
| than the extra "mumbo jumbo" you're relying on. That stuff
| should be a fallback for when scripts slip through the
| filters, not the primary means of protection.
| [deleted]
| rhim wrote:
| Why? The title does not claim to be related to the search, does
| it?
| yegg wrote:
| People know us primarily for search and our relationship with
| Microsoft is about search, so it will be assumed by most
| people this is about search (when it is not, it's about
| browsers).
|
| Additionally the way it is phrased implies Microsoft trackers
| get a free pass, when they are in fact heavily restricted,
| e.g., blocking 3rd party cookies, fingerprint protection,
| etc.
|
| And the current title can further easily be misinterpreted to
| be about more than Microsoft scripts on 3rd party sites
| (e.g., other companies, which it is not).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _know us primarily for search and our relationship with
| Microsoft is about search_
|
| This looks like a textbook brand extension [1] issue.
|
| Your brand is privacy. You built it on your search product.
| You're compromising those principles, perhaps reasonably
| so, in extending the search product's brand to a browser.
| This is coming back to bite the brand, search and all. (Per
| the Wikipedia article, it's highly recoverable.)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_extension
| yegg wrote:
| My goal is to get meaningful privacy protection in the
| hands of as many people as possible. We learned from
| extensive research that mainstream people do not want to
| install multiple things, and yet multiple types of
| protection are required to get meaningful privacy
| protection. So we are building them into one package, and
| are diligently working to make these protections as good
| as they can be.
| clairity wrote:
| let's be clear, your goal is to make money via a privacy
| brand positioning. that's fine, but it's not the same as
| simply "to get meaningful privacy protection in the hands
| of as many people as possible".
|
| this change in emphasis has been palpable in the 4 Ps
| (marketing strategy) of duckduckgo over the past few
| years.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _learned from extensive research that mainstream people
| do not want to install multiple things, and yet multiple
| types of protection are required to get meaningful
| privacy protection_
|
| This is a reasonable position. The shift in positioning
| that's driving the confusion is real, though.
|
| DDG (search) has an almost absolutist stance on privacy.
| That was differentiated. The nuanced tradeoff you
| describe, between privacy and convenience, which I agree
| boosts the actual outcomes, is something else. It's more
| similar to Apple's philosophy. Which is fine. I use their
| products as well as yours. But it's different in a
| fundamental, and to many a meaningful, way. That's going
| to be difficult to brush away without making it look like
| there's something to hide. (None of this could be said to
| have been predictable _ex ante_.)
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| FWIW this is exactly what happened to me and I support the
| title change.
|
| As a long time DDG user, my stomach turned when I saw this.
| Following the link to Twitter, it required a lot of digging
| to find what was really happening.
|
| For those of us using DDG search - this is a big nothing
| burger. For folks using DDG browser, this is misleading at
| best. The difference between the title and reality, from my
| understanding, isn't nuance.
|
| My reading of this title (and Twitter) made me believe DDG
| was sharing user data with MSFT across all of their
| properties (including search) by serving users MSFT
| trackers with DDGs content.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Same. 100% agreed w/ proposed title change.
| throwAwayWFH873 wrote:
| I found this passage [0] in the DDG help:
|
| > Ad clicks are managed by Microsoft's ad network.
|
| > Microsoft and DuckDuckGo have partnered [..] Microsoft
| Advertising will use your full IP address and user-agent string
| so that it can properly process the ad click and charge the
| advertiser
|
| It seems DDG is not that privacy focused when it comes to ads.
|
| [0] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-
| pages/company/ad...
| yegg wrote:
| Actually, that's not the case. First, that page is a linked
| to directly from every Microsoft ad on duckduckgo.com -- it's
| a public disclosure for transparency. Second, we specifically
| worked with Microsoft to make our ads privacy protected. When
| you load them, they are completely anonymous. When you click
| on them, we got Microsoft to contractually agree and publicly
| commit (on this page) that "Microsoft Advertising does not
| associate your ad-click behavior with a user profile. It also
| does not store or share that information other than for
| accounting purposes."
| tedivm wrote:
| So instead of an actual set of real protections, like
| offered by things such as UBlock, you want us to rely on
| Microsoft being ethical.
|
| It also ignores that governments like the NSA have tapped
| these very networks for data (this is what prompted
| Google's internal SSL drive). Even if we trust the legal
| entity, the fact is that the information itself is a target
| and so are those entities. It is always safer not to send
| the data, but in this case you're explicitly sacrificing
| that safety to benefit your ad partners.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I think a legal department could be convinced that
| "accounting purposes" could adequately cover most all of
| the business of tracking, optimizing, and attributing ad
| clicks.
|
| "Microsoft Advertising does not associate your ad-click
| behavior with a user profile."
|
| Does somebody else besides Microsoft Advertising do it? I'd
| guess so.
|
| Is there another kind of association besides a "user
| profile" which has substantially similar concerns for an
| end user? I'd guess so.
|
| This is all coming off as an attempt to cover up what's
| really going on with deception. _That might not be the
| case_ , but if it were, this is exactly how I expect a
| "privacy focused" organization to communicate when they had
| been corrupted by a compromise to a third party.
| Raed667 wrote:
| So now I also have to trust Microsoft before clicking on a
| DDG ad. Based on a pinky promise not to use my IP address +
| User-Agent + whatever fingerprint they make?
| Aeolun wrote:
| Why'd you even click on an ad in the first place if you
| are worried about that?
| freediver wrote:
| They wouldn't, and DDG has a convenient way to disable
| ads which I am sure many users take advantage of.
|
| Still, millions of users do click those ads, because if
| nobody did, DDG would not exist. A less tech savvy user,
| who is probably DDGs main target, came on the promise of
| privacy and does click those ads and is also being
| tracked around the web by Microsoft if they use DDG
| browser (from what I understand).
|
| This is less than ideal from the standpoint of "privacy
| simplified" promise, but really no other way around it
| when selling ads is your business model.
| derefr wrote:
| I mean, of course you have to trust a party X with your
| browsing fingerprint if party X is involved in serving
| the URL you go to when clicking on the link.
|
| What did you want--for the URL to go straight to the
| destination page with no redirect through an ad-network
| analytics provider, making your impression invisible to
| the network and thus unable to be costed against the
| advertiser? Why would any ad network even bother to
| participate in such a scheme? How would they make money?
| Prepayment for an arbitrary guess at predicted click-
| through count?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Accounting purposes?
|
| That brings us back to: What does Microsoft considers
| accounting purposes?
|
| Fingerprinting the user/browser can be used for valid
| accounting purposes like identifying the user to prevent ad
| fraud.
| RONROC wrote:
| yucky wrote:
| Brave search (and the Brave browser) are both great. As a
| longtime DDG user I think this is the final push I need to
| move on.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Brave cannot be trusted. They were misrepresenting
| themselves and their relationships with content creators.
| As far as I saw it, they were stealing and lying about it.
| They've inserted referral codes to cryptocurrency websites.
| That sounds completely anti-privacy and antithetical to
| anyone wanting a privacy-focused browser. Sorry, but that
| all just smells untrustworthy.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Would you provide some evidence of these claims?
| utopcell wrote:
| At the end of the day, you chose to enter the browser space
| knowing full well that you cannot back your privacy claims.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _Taking a step back, I know our product is not perfect and
| will never be._
|
| You may be making it worse. Really need to dial down on click
| tracking (or, at least respect the _dnt_ header).
|
| Ex A: Searching for _Cristiano Ronaldo_ (from Chrome Incognito
| but not Firefox, amusingly) returns this _horrible_ href:
| duckduckgo.com/l/?uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F
| Cristiano_Ronaldo&rut=4a9ada2347e29c8fce96a95bde34e6343c279202d
| bc22b4fe61524ab39bf8eff
| yegg wrote:
| That does't occur in modern browsers and is actually a
| privacy feature that prevents your searches from leaking to
| the sites you click on, generally in very old browsers that
| need to use our non-JavaScript site
| (http://duckduckgo.com/html). See
| https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-
| pages/results/rd... for details. From that page:
|
| **
|
| When you click on a link in our results page, your search
| terms are not sent to the site that you click on, which can
| be the case on other search engines due to something called
| HTTP "referers".
|
| On modern browsers we accomplish this by adding a small piece
| of code to our page called Meta referrer. Some browsers
| (especially older ones) do not support this standard,
| however. For those browsers, and also in situations where
| meta referrer doesn't work, we send the request back to our
| servers to remove search terms. This redirect goes through
| r.duckduckgo.com.
|
| You can disable this privacy feature. To do that, go to the
| settings page, select Privacy, and change the option Redirect
| to Off.
|
| **
| ignoramous wrote:
| Gotcha.
|
| > _...generally in very old browsers that need to use our
| non-JavaScript site (http://duckduckgo.com/html)._
|
| I use _duckduckgo.com /html_ & _duckduckgo.com /lite_ on
| all my (up-to-date) browsers (Firefox Mobile for Android /
| Chrome for Debian as two examples); they are "not very old"
| at all, and I still get ddg-proxied hrefs.
|
| A feature request (if I may): Old browser or not, if the
| _dnt_ header is set, I 'd ideally want ddg to _not_ proxy
| /redirect anything at all on my behalf.
| moollaza wrote:
| The redirect can be disabled in our settings.
|
| Go to https://duckduckgo.com/settings#privacy and disable
| the bottom setting, "Redirect (When Necessary)"
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| The "very old" browsers seem to include the very latest
| version of WebKitGTK-based GNOME Web aka Epiphany. (It does
| have legitimate conformance problems, admittedly, so I
| don't know if this is one of them.)
| sigzero wrote:
| Then Epiphany needs to fix it.
| digisign wrote:
| Is urlencoding sufficient to hide this? Doesn't appear to
| be.
| Hello71 wrote:
| and what is the rut=4a9ada2347e29c8fce96a95bde34e6343c27920
| 2dbc22b4fe61524ab39bf8eff for?
| yegg wrote:
| It is a random hash (not any kind of user identifier) for
| security to make sure we don't have an open proxy.
| ev1 wrote:
| I think the term you want is open redirect
| mikub wrote:
| I'm sorry but why do you post an example of an href,
| saying it's "horrible", when you don't know what it is
| doing?
| ev1 wrote:
| Because I can no longer just right click copy or hold/tap
| to link it to a friend
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| You can. The link still works, it's just ugly. And, as
| @yegg said, it's because you're browsing the lite
| version. Just disable the anti-tracking feature if you
| want.
| ignoramous wrote:
| This ddg redirect misfeature should be opt-in, not opt-
| out, imo.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Considering this is a well-known, well-advertised feature
| from many many many years ago, and has long been the way
| they do things, it's not going to suddenly change because
| you think more people should be tracked by default.
| ignoramous wrote:
| Considering it is a misfeature, I'd rather they think
| twice: I'm neither on a older browser nor do I disable
| JavaScript and yet I'm subject to ddg's terribly slow
| redirects.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "... an "easy button" for privacy."
|
| Fool's gold. Privacy is never easy.
| pcmaffey wrote:
| Privacy should be the default, not a button. The only way to
| achieve that is through regulation.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Well said.
| dontbenebby wrote:
| > This title is very misleading (and really should be changed).
|
| What do you think the title should be yegg?
| yegg wrote:
| It is hard to title because people assume this is about
| search (when it's not, so that should be in there), and also
| people assume trackers get a free pass (when they do not,
| e.g., 3rd party cookies blocked, etc.)
|
| Maybe something like:
|
| Microsoft contractually prevents DuckDuckGo's browser from
| stopping Microsoft scripts from loading on 3rd party sites
| (FYI: not search related)
| dontbenebby wrote:
| That sounds a bit literal IMHO but I see where you're
| coming from at least :-)
| KoftaBob wrote:
| What's an example of a Microsoft script loading on a 3rd
| party site, to help wrap my head around this?
| yegg wrote:
| The original example was Workplace.com embedding a
| LinkedIn script.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| Ah, I see!
|
| I think for transparency sake, it could be helpful to
| list the Microsoft trackers that were essentially white
| listed and therefore allowed to load on a particular
| site, right under the list of trackers that were blocked.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| When you visit a site, a variety of scripts are
| downloaded and run. Some from the website you visit, some
| from their CDN, and some from a variety of third parties
| that may track what you're doing and/or provide some
| other functionality. Google and Facebook are the major
| parties involved in this from my experience, but there
| are quite a few different ones including Microsoft.
|
| This is what I've gathered from running uMatrix for
| years.
| [deleted]
| altairprime wrote:
| "Bing search contract prohibits DDG browser from blocking
| Microsoft tracking scripts by default"?
| dontbenebby wrote:
| > "Bing search contract prohibits DDG browser from
| blocking Microsoft tracking scripts by default"?
|
| Thanks for making a definitive suggestion. I hate when
| someone knows something is wrong, but can't articulate
| what would be "right" (correct).
| dang wrote:
| That's too long to fit in 80 chars but I've taken a crack
| at a shorter version above. Thanks!
| gruez wrote:
| > (FYI: not search related)
|
| I agree with the first part of the title, but this part
| seems like you're going out of your way to defend yourself.
| The mention of "DuckDuckGo's browser" should already imply
| it's not search related.
| Jcowell wrote:
| The title off rip makes me think of the search. I didn't
| even remember they had a browser.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| GPC?
| kevwil wrote:
| Do Not Track 2.0, basically.
| https://globalprivacycontrol.org/
| chrisweekly wrote:
| TIL. Thanks!
| bryan_w wrote:
| You've written a lot of confusing statements so help me
| understand:
|
| Party #1: Me
|
| Party #2: DDG
|
| >currently prevents us from stopping Microsoft-owned scripts
| from loading
|
| How is this not allowing 3rd party (Microsoft) tracking? Are
| they loading the scripts from DDG's servers?
| yegg wrote:
| Sorry, I was trying to be clear not confusing :). But no,
| this has nothing to do with DuckDuckGo servers or sites,
| whatsoever. This is about completely 3rd party sites that
| might embed a Microsoft script. The original example was
| Workplace.com embedded a LinkedIn.com script.
| tiahura wrote:
| DDG seems to be following the path of Mozilla.
| [deleted]
| lapcat wrote:
| DuckDuckGo feels like just a front for Microsoft at this point. I
| once looked into buying search ads on DuckDuckGo, only to
| discover to my horror that DDG didn't have its own ad business.
| DDG is entirely reliant on Microsoft's advertising system. You
| have to sign up for a Microsoft account to even put ads on DDG!
| And it's difficult -- maybe impossible IIRC? -- to specifically
| target DDG in those ads, without also targeting other MS
| properties.
|
| Until DuckDuckGo separates itself from Microsoft and becomes
| truly independent, especially in its business model, you have to
| question why DDG even exists.
|
| DDG was founded 14 years ago. I can understand initially
| bootstrapping on MS ads, but what's the excuse now? How about
| separating yourself from Microsoft first, before making a web
| browser that gives special exemptions to Microsoft?
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| > you have to question why DDG even exists.
|
| Its been useful for me for 14 years so idk about that.
| rvz wrote:
| Yes. It's quite known for years and very unsurprising to be
| honest. [0] [1] [2]
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30703172
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27399017
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25839873
| lapcat wrote:
| > very unsurprising to be honest
|
| How is it unsurprising? Where on https://duckduckgo.com/ or
| https://duckduckgo.com/about do they mention Microsoft or
| Bing?
|
| In fact they go out of their way to mention Google without
| ever mentioning Microsoft:
|
| "Is DuckDuckGo owned by Google? No, we are not and have never
| been owned by Google. We have been an independent company
| since our founding in 2008 and, unlike some other search
| engines, we don't rely on Google's results for any of our
| search results."
| rvz wrote:
| > How is it unsurprising? Where on https://duckduckgo.com/
| or https://duckduckgo.com/about do they mention Microsoft
| or Bing?
|
| It is unsurprising. They have openly admitted it here [0],
| no hiding that fact. From [0]: We also of
| course have more traditional links in the search results,
| which we also source from multiple partners, though most
| commonly from Bing (and none from Google).
|
| [0] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-
| pages/results/so...
| lapcat wrote:
| I'm not claiming there's a cover-up. And I'm not claiming
| that this fact isn't known by some people.
|
| What I'm claiming is that the general public, including
| people who use DDG as their default search engine, are
| generally unaware of this relationship. And also that DDG
| doesn't go out of its way to highlight this relationship,
| even though they do acknowledge it in relatively obscure
| places.
| ziddoap wrote:
| The main help pages, under the big heading "Sources", is
| hardly obscure...
|
| If you're moving to DDG, it's most likely for privacy-
| related reasons. If that is the case, would you not do
| the absolute minimum due diligence by reading some of
| their main explanatory pages (e.g. where sources are
| from, how ads work, etc.)?
|
| I find it difficult to take someone seriously when they
| are complaining about a niche privacy-focused search
| engine, but don't seem to actually take their privacy
| seriously. The first step that should be done when using
| a new service/product, if you care about privacy, is to
| read the privacy policy and related documentation.
| lapcat wrote:
| Please read and follow the HN guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| qiskit wrote:
| > Until DuckDuckGo separates itself from Microsoft and becomes
| truly independent, especially in its business model, you have
| to question why DDG even exists.
|
| DDG exists to make money for itself. It doesn't exist to
| protect your privacy.
|
| From google to github to mozilla to everything, you would think
| the tech idealism would have died already. People working in
| tech, especially the elite, are some of the slimiest and
| greediest people on earth. Where money goes, so go the greedy
| slimeballs. It's pretty much a law of nature.
| lapcat wrote:
| > DDG exists to make money for itself. It doesn't exist to
| protect your privacy.
|
| I don't think these are mutually exclusive. It all depends on
| how you make your money.
|
| I would love to advertise on a search engine that's
| independent of Google and Microsoft. Unfortunately,
| DuckDuckGo is not it.
| robonerd wrote:
| > _you have to question why DDG even exists._
|
| Because Microsoft's reputation is lower than dirt and that's
| probably a big part of the reason why so many people mock Bing
| and refuse to even try it.
| resfirestar wrote:
| Maybe Bing's reputation would be better if its privacy
| practices were even up to par with Google. Bing gives you a
| deceptive toggle on the search history page that hides new
| searches from that page, but they still get logged to your
| Microsoft account and it can't be turned off (best you can do
| is periodically clear it). So even if just in that narrow
| sense, DDG has a reason to exist in that it lets you use Bing
| search in a manner at least as private as Google with Web &
| App Activity disabled.
| robonerd wrote:
| I think most people who ridicule Bing have never used it
| enough to know any of that. They used it _maybe_ once or
| twice, found the results subpar and took that as
| confirmation of what they were already inclined to believe:
| _' Another shitty product from Microsoft.'_
| prox wrote:
| And yet it is a 100 times better than what Google is doing.
| leokennis wrote:
| I consider DDG a no-bullshit less-creepy and infinitely less
| pushy and needy "skin" over Bing (and maybe some others) search
| results.
|
| In my opinion you have:
|
| - Google: best search results but you're profiled to death -
| Bing: okay-ish search results and you're profiled to death -
| DDG: okay-ish search results and you're barely or not tracked
| at all
|
| Easy choice for me.
| falcolas wrote:
| Just looking at the original title, I knew this was going to be a
| twitter post by a Brave employee posting either hearsay, or
| something taken out of context.
|
| Private browsing is a small niche, and Brave does their best to
| drive competitors at every turn, and not by being obviously
| better at it. Kinda scummy, if I'm honest.
| pcmaffey wrote:
| Was forever turned off Brave when they sent me direct mail
| advertisements (for a privacy focused browser lol). They bought
| my info from some list and spammed me with postcard ads.
| smotched wrote:
| Mail or Email? If its email every company does that,
| including DDG.
| belorn wrote:
| Sending unsolicited e-mail advertisements are explicitly
| illegal in my country and companies that do that could
| loose the right to exist.
|
| It should also be mentioned that using private information
| for unsolicited advertisements is something which is likely
| in conflict with GDPR.
| mort96 wrote:
| I've never gotten an unsolicited e-mail ad from DDG. And
| for every half-serious company which does send unsolicited
| e-mail ads, at least I know I'm the one who gave them my
| e-mail address. If people are getting e-mail ads from Brave
| without ever having disclosed their e-mail address to
| Brave, that's seriously concerning.
| cpeterso wrote:
| A physical postcard:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/utgukp/
| i...
| pcmaffey wrote:
| Snail mail.
| deltree7 wrote:
| "Privacy" focused users are the most monolithic demographic
| and the easiest to target in the history of all demographics.
|
| It's just as easy as selling bunker-beds and ammo for doomer-
| preppers (while stroking their ego).
|
| But, shhh don't tell them and hurt their ego
| txru wrote:
| It's interesting for me to imagine explaining this comment
| to a person in 1995
|
| At the very least I think it relegates people to buckets of
| either "People who believe tin foil hats give them
| privacy", and normal people.
|
| Either way I don't think it's a productive dichotomy.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Just looking at the original title, I knew this was going to
| be a twitter post by a Brave employee posting either hearsay,
| or something taken out of context.
|
| This HN submission links to a tweet by a Brave employee.
| However, that tweet is just a screenshot of replies to the
| thread at
| https://twitter.com/thezedwards/status/1528808759027331072
| written by a researcher who doesn't appear to be a Brave
| employee. I think it would be better if the link were directly
| to the tweet by Zach Edwards instead.
| falcolas wrote:
| Yeah, they probably should have.
|
| By posting a screenshot, the poster removed all context. Even
| being charitable, it's not a good luck for Brave.
| drfuzzy89 wrote:
| Agreed. All this post did for me is make me think even less of
| Brave. It hasn't really changed my opinion of DDG. For the
| majority of DDG users (like me) who only use it for search,
| this changes nothing. All it does is make the Brave folks look
| like mudslingers.
| smotched wrote:
| So you're okay with a company promising you privacy (core of
| their marketing) is in fact willing to instantly change for a
| Microsoft paycheck?
|
| What you're actually upset about is that someone pointed out
| their hypocrisy?
| drfuzzy89 wrote:
| I was promised tracking-free web searches, which has not
| been violated, though the Brave employee who tweeted this
| clearly meant to imply that it was. I don't use their web
| browser and I don't care to. But the original tweet is out
| of context and deliberately misleading and was posted by a
| competitor to DDG and so was clearly done in bad faith.
|
| I don't think it's great that Microsoft is exempt from some
| restrictions in the DDG browser, but this tweet is also
| referencing a post by a DDG employee freely disclosing the
| issue and stating that they're working to improve it. In my
| opinion, this sort of mudslinging makes the folks at Brave
| look petty while not really changing my opinion of DDG very
| much. I also think this is a case of letting the perfect be
| the enemy of the good.
|
| Feel free to continue to tell me how I feel about things,
| though, internet stranger. You're clearly much more in tune
| with my opinions than I am.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > Microsoft and DuckDuckGo have partnered
|
| Those are the saddest 5 words I have read all week.
|
| Et tu, Brute?
|
| "Partnered" is not a word one uses in connection with convicted
| criminal monopolists with a history of bribery, intimidation and
| fraud.
|
| I choose my words carefully - Microsoft are gangsters who would
| sell their own grandmothers for beer money. For DuckDuckGo to be
| associated with them is a disgrace.
| ta8645 wrote:
| DDG is starting to get bad press a fair bit these days. There was
| also a sizeable backlash against their weird Ukraine-war virtue
| signalling. Seems they're not as single-mindedly focused on
| privacy for search users, as their initial mission statement
| suggested.
| hedora wrote:
| What should they do instead? Put all the links at the top of
| the first page?
|
| What search engine doesn't try to detect and downrank
| sockpuppet spam? How's that working out for them?
| [deleted]
| yegg wrote:
| Our product vision is "Privacy, simplified." Since 2018 we've
| been more than search. Our app puts multi-pronged privacy
| protection in one package (private search, web protection,
| HTTPS upgrading, email protection, app tracking protection for
| Android, etc.), with a lot of effort to not break things while
| still offering strong protection -- an "easy button" for
| privacy if you will.
| pwned1 wrote:
| I've been a DDG user since your early days (you mailed me
| some DDG stickers when they were free). I was using DDG on
| every device and setting all of my family members to use the
| same on their devices.
|
| You lost me when you started telling us that you were going
| to start deciding what is unacceptable "russian propaganda"
| without any transparency into what that means or who will be
| deciding. Completely antithetical to your anti-bubble
| mission. It pains me to not be a cheerleader for you anymore,
| but that was such a betrayal that I can't get past it.
| yegg wrote:
| That is not what we are doing. See
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296
|
| On the search filter bubble, that is very still much what
| we do. To be clear, unlike some other search engines, we
| don't alter search results based on someone's previous
| search history. In fact, since we don't track our users we
| don't have access to search histories at all. Those other
| search engines show you results based on a data profile
| about you and your online activity (including your search
| history), and so can be slanted towards what they think you
| will click on the most based on this profiling. This effect
| is commonly known as the search filter bubble, but using
| DuckDuckGo can help you escape it. This does not mean,
| however, our search results are generally "unfiltered"
| because, for every search you make online, a search
| engine's job is to filter millions of possible results down
| to a ranked order of just a handful.
| gruez wrote:
| So let me get this straight, you're against filter
| _bubbles_ but are fine with filters for everyone?
| Agamus wrote:
| Yes, because internet searching requires general
| filtration, while filter bubbles do their filtering based
| on a specific user's previous searches.
|
| The former is necessary. The latter is... smelly.
| orwin wrote:
| Actually, i did not get his point but your simplification
| make so much sense. I'll try DDG again.
| pwned1 wrote:
| You missed my point. You are anti bubble, but you create
| the bubble for me. With no transparency into what you're
| doing.
| robonerd wrote:
| Transparency is key. If the filtering is transparently
| disclosed on the results page with a note to the effect
| of _" We've excluded results we consider to be Russian
| propaganda"_, then it all feels on the level and
| understandable, if not agreeable. Without such an upfront
| disclosure, it feels slimy and manipulative.
|
| It's the difference between hiding results, and hiding
| that you are hiding results. (Yes, I know it was
| disclosed on twitter. It should be disclosed on each
| results page, like Google's _" some results were omitted
| because DMCA etc"_ disclaimers. That is precedent for
| this sort of disclosure.)
| skrowl wrote:
| I switched to Brave search when DDG started censoring Ukraine
| war related news, and you should too. They jumped the shark.
|
| Search engines shouldn't be in the business of picking what
| content I see based on the owners of the search engines
| politics.
|
| Most other search engines are just reverse proxies for Google
| or Bing, so they inherit those biases.
| Goronmon wrote:
| _Search engines shouldn 't be in the business of picking what
| content I see based on the owners of the search engines
| politics._
|
| Aren't all search engines in the business of picking what
| content you can see based on the politics of the owner?
| Zak wrote:
| In theory, search engines are in the business of picking
| what content you can see based on the business interests of
| the owner.
| yegg wrote:
| That's actually not what is happening. We are not ranking
| based on my politics (or anyone's politics for that matter).
|
| We actually do not intentionally censor any news results,
| meaning media outlets are not being removed or their stories
| displayed so far down in the results they are effectively
| removed. That is, unless legally prohibited, you should find
| all media outlets in our results, and they should generally
| show on top if you search for them by name or domain name. If
| you are seeing otherwise, please me know and we will
| investigate.
|
| A search engine's primary job is to rank results, trying to
| put results that most quickly and accurately answer the query
| on top. We do this ranking in a strictly non-partisan manner.
| Ranking for news-related searches is particularly difficult
| because for most news stories there are often hundreds of
| media outlets covering the same story, many with similar
| relevancy in terms of keyword matching and popularity. As
| such, we look to another ranking factor to ensure just the
| top of the results aren't taken by obviously very low-quality
| news results so that users have more sources of relevant,
| high-quality news results to compare and choose between.
|
| The non-partisan factor we've found to help accomplish this
| is a rare, but well-documented history of a site's complete
| lack of news reporting standards, such as routinely using
| spam or clickbait to artificially inflate traffic,
| consistently publishing stories without citing sources,
| censoring stories due to operating with very limited press
| freedom, or misleading readers about who owns, funds, and
| authors stories for the site. And since we do not censor
| sites, even state-sponsored media in countries with very
| limited press freedom, these sites will still show up in
| results, and even on top like when you search for them
| directly.
| mistermann wrote:
| > a site's complete lack of news reporting standards, such
| as routinely using spam or clickbait to artificially
| inflate traffic, consistently publishing stories without
| citing sources, censoring stories due to operating with
| very limited press freedom, or misleading readers about who
| owns, funds, and authors stories for the site
|
| I'm curious of the implementation. Are these sites in a
| list and that alters their ranking in the results? Or some
| other approach?
| barbacoa wrote:
| @yegg
|
| Would also be very curious to hear an answer to this. Its
| been long rumored that Google has weights or
| boost/throttle values that are manually assigned to
| websites by humans which impact ranking. Would be great
| to understand if DDG is following in Google's footsteps.
| cudder wrote:
| rt.com does not show up in your search results when
| searching for either "rt" or "russia today".
| yegg wrote:
| Yes it does. It is actually the top result, and also the
| top results if you search for 'rt ukraine'.
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rt+ukraine&ia=web
|
| If you are in the EU, though, the EU legally prohibited
| search engines from linking to RT & Sputnik.
| cudder wrote:
| > If you are in the EU, though, the EU legally prohibited
| search engines from linking to RT & Sputnik.
|
| That must be it then, I wasn't aware. Thanks for
| correcting me.
| barbacoa wrote:
| >That must be it then, I wasn't aware. Thanks for
| correcting me.
|
| You weren't wrong. Try to get RT to show up without
| specifying "RT"/"Russia today"/etc. I can search RT
| article titles with quotes but the original RT link will
| be on the second page if at all.
|
| Now repeat this experiment with the NYTimes and compare
| the outcome.
|
| DDG may not delist RT but you would not be a fool to
| suspect DDG throttles the visibility.
| ColinHayhurst wrote:
| > the EU legally prohibited search engines from linking
| to RT & Sputnik.
|
| They prohibited broadcasters [0]. The legality of
| extension to search is disputed [1]. The EU sent a
| request to Google [2]. Microsoft announced changes
| including "further de-ranking these sites' search results
| on Bing" ahead of the EU sanctions and PR [3].
|
| [0] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-
| releases/2022...
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/tjmcintyre/status/1501596542624485382
|
| [2] https://www.lumendatabase.org/blog_entries/notice-in-
| lumen-r...
|
| [3] https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-
| issues/2022/02/28/ukraine...
| herdcall wrote:
| I just searched for "russia today" on DDG and rt.com did
| NOT show up on the first page, instead the page has:
| aljazeera, dailymail, cnn, bbc, reuters, themoscotimes,
| wikipedia, cnbc, npr, and yahoo. And this is from
| California (Orange County).
| gruez wrote:
| FWIW I tried "rt" and "russia today" and rt.com was the
| first hit for both.
| yegg wrote:
| Not sure what is going on there (will investigate, not
| intentional), but try https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rt&ia=web
| & https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rt+ukraine&ia=web
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| To be fair, they changed their name to RT over a decade
| ago. Neither their home page nor their about page feature
| the word "today."
| herdcall wrote:
| Well, rt.com is the first result on Brave search for the
| same search.
| somenameforme wrote:
| In the meta it's listed as the author name. A good way to
| illustrate the consequences of "curating" searches is to
| search for its meta description but exclude the term RT
| (which presumably overrides the "curation") : https://duc
| kduckgo.com/?q=the+first+Russian+24%2F7+English-l...
|
| You get lots of spammy stuff (top link is a site offering
| to sell a translation of RT), site-ranking sites (that
| rank RT), some rando lady quoting RT's meta description
| on Twitter (!!!), and even RT's pages on Twitter,
| Linkedin. And then it's finally there, just before
| getting into really high quality results like a page on
| rotten tomatoes ranking the 200 Best LGBTQ+ Movies of All
| Time.
|
| "Curating" results is a great way to completely break
| your own search engine.
| notriddle wrote:
| > In the meta it's listed as the author name.
|
| If I was designing a search engine, I wouldn't use
| keywords in meta tags for ranking. It's too vulnerable to
| keyword stuffing attacks.
| eli wrote:
| Downranking Russian state propaganda from the search results
| for people searching general news about the war in Ukraine is
| useful and makes the results better. That isn't what most
| people are searching for in the top few results. Much of it is
| objectively untrue. Announcing the change isn't "virtue
| signaling," it's transparency. Surely HN would be more upset if
| the change was made and kept quiet.
| mistermann wrote:
| How is Russian State propaganda identified?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| hedora wrote:
| The two most common ways are research into the ownership of
| the news outlet, and by provenance tracking stories from
| known Russian-owned sites to other outlets. That's combined
| with old-fashioned journalism, where people attempt to
| verify suspected propaganda stories by finding
| corroborating evidence. (Sometimes the Russian sites run
| true stories, after all.)
|
| This approach tends to produce some false positives, as
| there are news sites that don't fact check stuff before
| repeating it, and they end up being indistinguishable from
| state-sponsored propaganda to outside observers. I'm not
| sure how much it matters in practice if sites that
| routinely publish incorrect stories accidentally get
| misclassified.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-
| prop...
|
| http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html
| eli wrote:
| I don't think there are any Russia-based independent news
| sites left, are there?
| mistermann wrote:
| > The two most common ways are research into the
| ownership of the news outlet, and by provenance tracking
| stories from known Russian-owned sites to other outlets.
| That's combined with old-fashioned journalism, where
| people attempt to verify suspected propaganda stories by
| finding corroborating evidence. (Sometimes the Russian
| sites run true stories, after all.)
|
| Who is it that performs this service? And do all search
| engines consume the same classifications?
|
| Considering how much obvious propaganda from Western
| sources I consume on a daily basis, I'm more than a
| little skeptical that they can be trusted to label what
| is and is not true from geopolitical rivals.
| ecmascript wrote:
| This is exactly what happened to Google and why Google is
| just one big filter bubble today. The started making
| decisions for the users and this is precisely what DDG was
| not about doing when they started.
|
| Now they have deviated from that vision so I could just as
| well use Google instead.
| eli wrote:
| How do you propose a search engine provide ordered results
| without making decisions for users about what order they
| should appear in?
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| LOL at thinking _anything_ nowadays is "objectively untrue,"
| _especially_ reporting about a war.
| eli wrote:
| It's illegal to use the word "war" to describe it in Russia
| gruez wrote:
| >Downranking Russian state propaganda from the search results
| for people searching general news about the war in Ukraine is
| useful and makes the results better.
|
| You can plausibly make the same argument about downranking
| sites like CNN or fox news.
| eli wrote:
| Sure. It's a judgement call. It _always_ is.
|
| The people who order counterfeit pills from "canadian
| pharmacy" sites probably don't consider those sites spam
| and could plausibly argue that they shouldn't be
| downranked.
| teh64 wrote:
| How could you make the same argument? CNN and Fox News are
| allowed to report on things that the Government does not
| want it to and they can say things that the Government
| would not want them to say. I mean CNN and Fox News are on
| different sides and report on things very differently,
| whereas Russian state propaganda follows the exact same
| line and messaging. I'm sure you would agree CNN and Fox
| News do not have the same messaging or agenda?
| qiskit wrote:
| > Downranking Russian state propaganda from the search
| results for people searching general news about the war in
| Ukraine is useful and makes the results better
|
| Considering most propaganda we see are US/EU propaganda,
| wouldn't it be better to downrank US/EU 'news'? Why target
| one propaganda but not the others?
| dontbenebby wrote:
| OTOH they do try to at least make sure the results are
| accurate.
|
| That's one reason I moved over from Google. I sure didn't feel
| lucky using THAT search engine.
| rhim wrote:
| I did not know this privacy comparison between browsers. It was
| shared under the tweet: https://privacytests.org/android.html
| sylware wrote:
| yegg wrote:
| This has nothing to do with search. See
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490603. And that's not
| actually how we make our results either -- our results are
| actually made anonymously from a variety of sources. In
| particular, when people search, we believe they're really
| looking for answers, as opposed to just links. For many
| categories of searches (restaurants, lyrics, weather, etc.),
| there is usually a specialized search engine (e.g.,
| Tripadvisor), content site (e.g., Musixmatch), or dedicated
| source (e.g., DarkSky) that does a better job of actually
| answering searches than a general search engine can with just
| links. Our long-term goal has been for over a decade to get you
| Instant Answers from these best sources.
|
| Most of our search result pages now feature one or more Instant
| Answers. To deliver Instant Answers on specific topics,
| DuckDuckGo leverages many sources, including specialized
| sources like Sportradar and crowd-sourced sites like Wikipedia.
| We also maintain our own crawler (DuckDuckBot) and many indexes
| to support our results. Of course, we have more traditional
| links in our search results too, which we do largely source
| from Bing, but that's just part of the page. Our focus is
| synthesizing all these sources to create a superior search
| experience, and there is a lot of technology behind it. For
| example, local searches appear on most mobile searches, and
| none of that is coming from Bing.
| lapcat wrote:
| > In particular, when people search, we believe they're
| really looking for answers, as opposed to just links.
|
| I'm really looking for links. In fact I'd rather not have
| "answers" that the search engine just claims are true with
| little or no context. I trust search engines to search, and
| nothing more than that. They should not be a source of truth.
| x32n23nr wrote:
| Come on Gabriel! Yes people search for weather, lyrics, sport
| scores and local results, but you do not have a web search
| engine without being able to search the web. Saying "Of
| course, we have more traditional links in our search results
| too, which we do largely source from Bing, but that's just
| part of the page" is disingenuous.
| yegg wrote:
| No, it's really not. What people don't realize about search
| is things get clicked on in an exponential fashion, with
| each piece down the page being engaged with about half as
| much, so nearer to the bottom of the visible page, 100x
| less. Since instant answers are often on top, the % of
| engagement on non-traditional links is much lower than one
| would otherwise think. And as mobile searches are now the
| majority, local results (including maps, places listings,
| etc.) occur on a large % of searches. Same for Wikipedia
| content. And neither of those are sourced by Bing, along
| with dozens of other popular Instant Answers driven by many
| different indexes. Put another way, we have a very large
| search codebase and overall engineering team, and all of
| this technology is doing something, and we believe
| something good!
| hna86 wrote:
| Could you quantify this with some numbers? What
| proportion of the requests you get every day are answered
| completely by your own index, without using Bing?
| x32n23nr wrote:
| Original audit thread:
|
| https://twitter.com/thezedwards/status/1528808759027331072
| BilalBudhani wrote:
| Sadly this remind me of the golden phrase
|
| > if you are not paying for the product then you are the product
|
| I have switched to Kagi [0] a paid search engine (free in beta)
| as my default search engine and so far it has been working out
| great.
|
| [0] https://www.kagi.com
| Mo3 wrote:
| Same here, very happy with Kagi and have no problem paying for
| the product instead of becoming the product.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| I'll pile on this Kagi recommendation - going on a few months
| I've used it exclusively. It has bangs like DDG but I find I
| use them less. Kagi's results are generally quite good.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Sorry, if your software disallows blocking MS trackers you are in
| no way orienting yourself towards privacy.
| zerr wrote:
| Ecosia is a bing front-end as well. I wonder if they a similar
| deal.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Linked to in the Twitter thread was this site which I've never
| heard of, but is very interesting:
|
| https://privacytests.org
| dontbenebby wrote:
| tombot wrote:
| Just to be clear, you are annoyed because DuckDuckGo offered to
| pay for your interview(!) but you didn't like the payment
| processor they chose to reimburse you with?
| dontbenebby wrote:
| Do you really want me to respond to this question?
|
| I'll set aside a whole hour, but I think it'd be rude to list
| off all the reasons I'm annoyed I didn't get the role I
| applied for, or pointed at something a better fit for my CV.
|
| The larger issue is I applied there after having my career
| obstructed for over a decade because I agree with the
| fouders. I've met several of their employees -- I told many
| people offline some of them were incredibly skilled in their
| roles.
|
| That meta level pattern of being obstructed, trying to help
| others who have that same issue, then being thrust further
| into precarity really grinds my gears.
|
| Feel free to ask another question like the above, and I'll
| reply in even more detail.
|
| Your move.
|
| - Greg.
| [deleted]
| elforce002 wrote:
| DDG lost me when they said they were going to start "curating"
| search responses. Give me all unadulterated results with out any
| bias and let me decide what to do with it.
| signatoremo wrote:
| What do "unadulterated results" mean? How should DDG return
| them to you, and in which order, if there are a million results
| for your query?
| [deleted]
| yegg wrote:
| That's actually not what we are doing -- see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296 for an
| explanation I just posted.
| Imnimo wrote:
| So if I understand correctly, the problem is that in order to
| license its search index, MS requires a concession from DDG on
| its browser. From a customer's standpoint, these are two separate
| products - you can use DDG search and not use DDG's browser, or
| vice versa. It's only because they're made by the same company
| that MS has the leverage to demand this carve-out. It seems like
| the answer for customers is to just not use a browser made by
| DDG, thereby removing that leverage.
| [deleted]
| buzzwords wrote:
| So the first question I have is "does tracking help provide
| better search results?" The second question is, "Can you run a
| profitable search engine without target ad revenues?"
| yegg wrote:
| This actually has nothing to do with search. Please see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490603 for a detailed
| explanation.
| ErrrNoMate wrote:
| Browsers are walled gardens, it's better not to use this one,
| especially as the company deals with other things which involve
| Microsoft. Any link to them means the privacy sell is a bit
| sketchy to me.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| maverick74 wrote:
| @yegg
|
| Well... how about stopping all this "Bing on the background"
| thing and do like Brave search and Qwant (which i'm testing as to
| switch away from ddg for a few months now - because of you
| relying in Bing) and start believing a bit more on your own
| index???
|
| Why not start being a "real" search engine???
|
| I would say it's about time!!!
|
| (If brave and qwant can do it, so can you - man... even Gigablast
| does it!!!)
| yegg wrote:
| First, it is misleading to say our results just come from Bing.
| That's far from the case in actuality. Please see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31490994 for a more
| detailed explanation on that.
|
| On other search engines, they all rely somewhat on either
| Google's or Bing's web crawling: Qwant, Bing and Brave, Google
| (and Bing for images). This is easy to see as a webmaster since
| you don't see their crawlers much (if at all). Only Google and
| Bing are doing full scale web crawls. However, search is a lot
| more than traditional web links -- in fact it is about half now
| from instant answers that can come from dozens of sources and
| indexes (which the above comment gets into).
| cato_the_elder wrote:
| > First, it is misleading to say our results just come from
| Bing. That's far from the case in actuality.
|
| That's just corpo-speak. For the most part, Duckduckgo is
| Bing with some additional features. That's true to the extent
| that when Bing decided to censor the Tank Man image, it was
| removed from your results too. [1] Not that you guys refrain
| from censorship yourselves. [2]
|
| The crawler (DuckDuckBot) doesn't have much of an impact on
| the search results, it's mainly used to provide instant
| answers. [3]
|
| [1]: https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2021/06/04/search_engine
| _tia...
|
| [2]: https://nitter.net/yegg/status/1501716484761997318
|
| [3]: https://seirdy.one/2021/03/10/search-engines-with-own-
| indexe...
| solso wrote:
| This is Josep M. Pujol from Brave Search.
|
| I'd like to correct some factually incorrect information
| regarding Brave Search.
|
| Brave search crawls the web through the Web Discovery Project
| and has its own crawler, which fetches a bit more than 100M
| pages daily.
|
| Brave search uses Bing API and Google fallback for about 8%
| of the results shown to the users, the remaining 92% are
| served from our own index, when we launched almost 1 year ago
| the number of results from 3rd parties was 13%.
|
| There is no need to mention "multiple source" when a number
| can be given. The underlying theme here is not if DDG
| provides no value on top of Bing, it does, no one is
| questioning that. The question is whether DDG would be able
| to operate if Bing were to shut DDG down tomorrow.
|
| If Bing and Google were to disappear tomorrow, for whatever
| reason, Brave search would continue to operate, that's the
| independence Brave search is building.
| thewebcount wrote:
| > The question is whether DDG would be able to operate if
| Bing were to shut DDG down tomorrow.
|
| No, that doesn't appear to be the question at all. The
| original post appears to be an attempt to smear DDG by
| posting misleading information that you know will confuse
| users into thinking that their search engine sends PII to
| Microsoft when you know it doesn't. The original tweet
| doesn't appear to mention Bing shutting down at all. Here's
| the entirety of the tweet:
|
| "This is shocking. DuckDuckGo has a search deal with
| Microsoft which prevents them from blocking MS trackers.
| And they can't talk about it! This is why privacy products
| that are beholden to giant corporations can never deliver
| true privacy; the business model just doesn't work."
|
| I see nothing in there questioning whether DuckDuckGo will
| still be around if Bing goes under. I also see nothing in
| yegg's response above that has anything to do with this
| irrelevant question you mention.
| solso wrote:
| There is plenty of comments discussing on the provenance
| of DDG results, including from Gabriel himself, which is
| the one we both have participated in,
|
| "it is misleading to say our results just come from
| Bing."
|
| Discussing how many sources can one bring together it's a
| distraction to not discuss the degree of dependency
| between DDG and Bing. More-so when claiming that others
| suffer from the same, which is factually incorrect for
| Brave search.
| ziddoap wrote:
| What factually incorrect information was posted? Maybe I
| missed it.
|
| Yegg said _" they all rely _somewhat_ on either Google's or
| Bing's web crawling"_ and you confirmed it by saying _"
| Brave search uses Bing API and Google fallback for about
| 8%"_. So... which part is factually incorrect?
|
| Edit: Misread the second part, removed that portion of my
| statement.
| maverick74 wrote:
| Brave indeed brings high hopes in this field!!!
|
| I was just hopping that, since it was based upon tailcat,
| it would create a bigger disruption by being opensource
| like Gigablast.
|
| (However, i understand that, from a financial point of
| view, that's a risky move. But like DDG... i hope that
| maybe someday it will be)
| spiderice wrote:
| Holy shit, stop calling everything anyone in this thread says
| "misleading". Your answers are so off-putting. GP didn't say
|
| > [your] results just come from Bing
|
| You're the one being misleading here by suggesting that they
| did say that. Nobody is interpreting what they said as "All
| search results from DDG are just straight from bing". You're
| nitpicking words in almost every one of your responses.
| kevwil wrote:
| If there are truly only two full-scale web crawlers left, and
| they are Google (ew!) and Bing (ew!), then it's high time
| there were more options. I naively thought DDG was exactly
| that, with a 100% focus on privacy. The cake is a lie.
| maverick74 wrote:
| Yes, i've read most of the comments...
|
| But what i would REALLY like to see on DDG (beside it
| becoming fully OpenSource - someday) was having it taking the
| step of not relying on Bing.
|
| That is a terrible shadow over you.
|
| You should embrace the momentum you're having and step up and
| do your own thing. Your own index. Yes, you have to
| build/rely on others such as wikipedia... naturally
|
| But please... NOT on big tech!!!
|
| Or one day, someone else will get there and eat your lunch
| (Honestly, Qwant is a great alternative that apparently does
| not rely on big tech)
|
| I maybe wrong, but i think this is what everyone one wishes
| from DDG!!! I believe everyone wants DDG free from Big Tech
|
| (but everyone is free to correct me).
| x32n23nr wrote:
| Qwant is also using Microsoft's Bing Search API.
|
| "Qwant uses different programming interfaces such as those
| of Microsoft Bing, Twitter, YouTube, or iTunes" --
| https://about.qwant.com/en/legal/classement/
| maverick74 wrote:
| WT...?!?!? I was not aware of this!!!
|
| Is Gigablast, really, the only "alternative"?!?!?! (in
| the meanwhile, since there is no advantage, i'll be back
| to DDG....... for the time being...)
|
| Still, my point remains: we could, at least, have a
| version of DDG that would only use it's own index!!!
|
| Isn't that possible? (I would be using it!!!)
| ColinHayhurst wrote:
| Mojeek - totally independent, no-tracking; but I'm
| biased.
|
| Independent take: https://seirdy.one/2021/03/10/search-
| engines-with-own-indexe...
| solso wrote:
| Mojeek is one of the very few players that are building
| their own index, my respects.
| vimacs2 wrote:
| Well, the writing was on the wall as soon as they started
| blocking "Russian misinformation" that DDG are trying to ape the
| general practices of other search engines. Now, even the privacy
| itself is a secondary concern. Thankfully, I've already switched
| to Brave search last month and will likely eventually set up a
| SearX instance for a long term solution free of control by a
| corporation.
| dutchblacksmith wrote:
| Well Yegg, I'll keep on using DDG. As I have done for years.
| verisimi wrote:
| I'm enjoying presearch!
|
| https://www.presearch.org/
|
| you can dive into google/ddg/etc's searches on the left, but its
| pretty decent!
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