Privacy is not binary. There are degrees of it and it's dependent on context.
The problem here is that DDG promotes itself as a highly private service and at the same time makes a deal to share tracking data with (arguably) one of the worst privacy offenders.
This makes them substantially less privacy-friendly than they make it seem.
With respect to Microsoft being one of the worst privacy offenders, can you please expand on this?
Why can't you just unlink your Microsoft login and use offline account if you're using Windows, or use ad blockers? Even if you somehow see an ad aimed at you, why can't it be in your power to just ignore them? Think in the terms of "I'll only look up a product/services if I have a functional need for it" rather than fall to the trap of "just because I have lots of money doesn't mean I have to spend it today"?
A lot of times by the way if I see something I fancy, I'd end up looking at Amazon and find the best product at affordable cost, so I don't really click on any ads. If I recall even, I NEVER click on an ad, I'd go as far that I ignored sponsored ads in Amazon, so what's the problem with ads?
I was talking about Microsoft being an offender in general, not necessarily anything specific to this deal.
That said, each new datapoint a large data broker like Microsoft gets adds that much more to their ability to deanonymise you, regardless of whether you're logged in to any of their services or not. This can happen more directly (e.g. shared, long-lived cookies), or indirectly via techniques like fingerprinting.
My understanding is that they make money by providing ads based on your current search, a bit like a good old gardening magazine would make money by printing ads related to gardening. That is very unlike Google and Facebook etc.
To me, this is clearly a hit piece. The headlines insinuate that this applies to all of DDG.
This only affects the DDG mobile app. Just for starters, and not to be snarky, but doesn't the very use of a mobile telephone contradict concerns about privacy?
The whole thing has a slashdotty kind of odor to it.
It's a curate's egg situation. "Only a little bit of our product contains the largest tech scam of the 21st century". Once a small part of your product is infected, the entire product is corrupted.
They created their own currency. They pay you that currency to view ads. You can take that currency and hold it, or exchange it for dollars, every time it pays out.
Is it basically the same as a centralized loyalty program? Eh, sort of, but once you have your points, you can go sell them to anyone else, off platform. It's an improvement in usability over any sort of reward points in the restaurant and ecommerce industries. I dont think BAT is a scam. There isnt a promise that holding it will make you rich. There is actually an economy for it, as advertisers are buying it for a reason, vs it just being something that people buy hoping to later offload on to the next sucker.
And it is optional. Don't turn it on, and the product isnt infected at all.
DuckDuckGo's browser isn't as private as you thought; this doesn't seem relevant to their search engine, which AFAIK is what most people think of when they see "DuckDuckGo"
Yup. You would have thought HN would care about the truth rather than just reading headlines and assuming the worst. I imagine very few people here are even using the DDG browser.
I think I have it, though I never really found a need for it since I have DDG set up as search engine on mobile firefox anyway. There is no point to that app...
Yes, and insofar as other browsers don't block any scripts, it seems safe to say that the DDG browser is still strictly better than those other browsers, isn't it?
As much as I enjoy hating DDG, this is about their browser, not their search engine. I doubt many people use their browser at all, so this doesn't impact as many people as the title implies.
HN is very susceptible to pseudo-nerd hype (Encrypted apps that are actually honeypots, decentralized networks that really are not etc), since a lot of people are not very deeply technical (but consider themselves geeks) they fall for this type of marketing.
DDG is more private than Google or Bing, which is what really matters for most people. But since it's closed source, there is a degree of risk that it tracks more than it says. It might eventually get purchased or coerced somehow (like their recent contract issues with MS.)
Searx is the best search engine I'm aware of right now provided you can find an instance that works (searx.be is good for me.)
Plus, this might be a bit nitpicky on my part, but “X isn't as Y as you thought” headlines are almost always uninformative clickbait. I mean, how private did I think DuckDuckGo [browser] was before? Did you think it was more private than I did? Or less? How private did the author believe it to be?
I would much prefer informative headlines which make no assumption of prior beliefs, for example:
“X sells itself as Y, but it does Z”
“X not as Y as alternative option A is”
...or even a headline where the author's subjective belief is invoked, if that is the style of the article:
49 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadThe problem here is that DDG promotes itself as a highly private service and at the same time makes a deal to share tracking data with (arguably) one of the worst privacy offenders.
This makes them substantially less privacy-friendly than they make it seem.
Why can't you just unlink your Microsoft login and use offline account if you're using Windows, or use ad blockers? Even if you somehow see an ad aimed at you, why can't it be in your power to just ignore them? Think in the terms of "I'll only look up a product/services if I have a functional need for it" rather than fall to the trap of "just because I have lots of money doesn't mean I have to spend it today"?
A lot of times by the way if I see something I fancy, I'd end up looking at Amazon and find the best product at affordable cost, so I don't really click on any ads. If I recall even, I NEVER click on an ad, I'd go as far that I ignored sponsored ads in Amazon, so what's the problem with ads?
That said, each new datapoint a large data broker like Microsoft gets adds that much more to their ability to deanonymise you, regardless of whether you're logged in to any of their services or not. This can happen more directly (e.g. shared, long-lived cookies), or indirectly via techniques like fingerprinting.
395 points, 240 comments
By using "another" vs "a" you are implicitly drawing a comparison. And, I think we all, and you, are very aware of that.
This only affects the DDG mobile app. Just for starters, and not to be snarky, but doesn't the very use of a mobile telephone contradict concerns about privacy?
The whole thing has a slashdotty kind of odor to it.
yes. bought the Librem5... still waiting though...
https://privacytests.org/
It shouldnt even be in the same conversation as trackers tracking you across the internet.
It's also such a small part of their product. Without it on, you wouldnt notice it exists.
They created their own currency. They pay you that currency to view ads. You can take that currency and hold it, or exchange it for dollars, every time it pays out.
Is it basically the same as a centralized loyalty program? Eh, sort of, but once you have your points, you can go sell them to anyone else, off platform. It's an improvement in usability over any sort of reward points in the restaurant and ecommerce industries. I dont think BAT is a scam. There isnt a promise that holding it will make you rich. There is actually an economy for it, as advertisers are buying it for a reason, vs it just being something that people buy hoping to later offload on to the next sucker.
And it is optional. Don't turn it on, and the product isnt infected at all.
Searx is the best search engine I'm aware of right now provided you can find an instance that works (searx.be is good for me.)
The fact that DDG is neither of Google or Bing should probably be what really matters.
I would much prefer informative headlines which make no assumption of prior beliefs, for example:
“X sells itself as Y, but it does Z”
“X not as Y as alternative option A is”
...or even a headline where the author's subjective belief is invoked, if that is the style of the article:
“X isn't as Y as I thought”