DuckDuckGo Isn’t as Private as You Thought

[Imran]

DuckDuckGo made a deal with the devil. Due to a confidential search agreement, the DuckDuckGo browser does not block all Microsoft trackers. What’s worse, DuckDuckGo only acknowledged this “privacy hole” after it was discovered by a security researcher.

As you may know, DuckDuckGo pulls its search results from other services, primarily Bing. You may also know that clicking a Microsoft-provided ad in DuckDuckGo will reveal your IP address to the Microsoft Advertising service—this is explicitly stated on DuckDuckGo’s website and in the company’s search engine.

But this partnership goes a bit deeper than we thought. Security researcher @thezedwards found that the mobile DuckDuckGo browser does not block Microsoft trackers on third-party websites, such as the Facebook-owned Workplace.com.


https://twitter.com/shivan_kaul/status/1...0772338689

Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO of DuckDuckGo, is now running damage control on Twitter. He explains that Microsoft cannot see what you search in DuckDuckGo, and the DuckDuckGo browser blocks all Microsoft cookies. But if you visit a website that contains Microsoft’s trackers, then your data is exposed to services like Bing and LinkedIn.

This is the result of DuckDuckGo’s “search syndication agreement” with Microsoft. In order to pull search information from Bing, the privacy experts at DuckDuckGo have to poke holes in their browser’s security system.

While DuckDuckGo has a solid privacy policy when it comes to Microsoft’s ads, it hasn’t explained how Microsoft uses data from third-party trackers. And that’s quite alarming. Maybe this situation is overblown, or maybe Microsoft can build targeted ad profiles based on your web activity in DuckDuckGo—we don’t know because DuckDuckGo signed a confidentiality agreement.

https://www.reviewgeek.com/118915/duckdu...u-thought/

[Dareks]

Unfortunately, "Privacy" has long been a fiction. All brands, companies and concerns sell our data.