Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide

588 168 16 years ago

yuvadam• 16 years ago

Strangely enough, and with all the anti-google hype lately, this really makes me want to ditch google for web searches (Gmail is harder to leave...)

requinot59• 16 years ago

Good explanations of privacy issue using Google for the neophyte. Thanks for this, I'll use this link when I tell someone about the online privacy stuff.

Ryan_IRL• 16 years ago

I think it's some valid info here, and it's certainly worth being wary of the info Google collects, but I also sense a little bit of FUD here. The whole "...which can often uniquely identify you" makes me feel like this is playing on fear a little too much. It's not like that "big ebony booty" search is going to come up in a job interview any time soon guys.

TomOfTTB2• 16 years ago

Yeah but someday it might and if it does today's info will be there. Because these companies are collecting the info now.

So while there's not yet a company collecting, collating and selling this info from all the various sources the database that company will eventually sell is already being built.

benologist• 16 years ago

Once upon a time what you did on myspace and facebook had no impact on your work life.

epi0Bauqu16• 16 years ago

I really tried hard with this not to perpetrate any FUD. I re-read all the recent WSJ reporting many times and ran this by a bunch of critical eyes. Tracking down to the individual level is certainly real.

gyardley• 16 years ago

The 'F' in FUD stands for fear. While tracking down to the individual level is certainly real, it certainly isn't anything a typical user needs to be concerned about - at least not to the extent that the WSJ's encouraging.

(Many people in the ad industry assume the WSJ's spreading such FUD because the WSJ as a premium brand benefits disproportionately in a world with dumbed-down ad targeting. I don't have any evidence for this - but it would explain the WSJ's vituperativeness.)

To me, this looks like you've just reproduced the WSJ's FUD, since the FUD just happens to reflect favorably on DuckDuckGo. That's not exactly laudable, although it is understandable.

jdp23• 16 years ago

Agreed. I didn't see FUD here, just an accurate presentation of how much tracking Google does. So I decided to start out the new year by switch my search to DDG and seeing how well it performs.

brudgers5• 16 years ago

>"...which can often uniquely identify you" makes me feel like this is playing on fear a little too much.

A browser signature is somewhat akin to a physical finger print.

https://panopticlick.eff.org/

bigebonybooty.com can sell your data too.

mikeocool• 16 years ago

The browser signature presented on panopticlick is really not akin to a physical finger print at all.

Most of the features that are called out as making up your browser's 'finger print' actually change fairly regularly on most users machines. Using these features, your finger print would change anytime you update your browser, add a new plugin, or disalbe an old font.

Skywing• 16 years ago

You know what? I'm one of those people that can probably say "who cares", but I think I'm going to try out DuckDuckGo over the upcoming week.

jeromeflipo2• 16 years ago

Why not simply use https://encrypted.google.com with http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?

wyclif• 16 years ago

Here's how Google SSL differs from default Google: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer...

jeromeflipo2• 16 years ago

... which confirms that Google SSL protects my privacy as much as DDG, right?

jellicle• 16 years ago

How would that solve the problems listed in the original link?

fmavituna2• 16 years ago

HTTP referrer header will be stripped from HTTPS to HTTP according to RFC so it solves one of the problems.

Also there is a Chrome extension for Google SSL Web search: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/lcncmkcnkcdbbanb...

epi0Bauqu16• 16 years ago

I don't think it blocks the header for HTTPS -> HTTPS traffic though.

codeup3• 16 years ago

Encryption would just make sure that only Google gets your search queries. They would still profile your searches. Also, opting out of Google Analytics does not affect your search profile.

But then, why should we have to opt out of this instead of opting in?

snippyhollow• 16 years ago

I switched definitely to duckduckgo one month ago and I'm happy about it. I find that for us, tech-oriented people, it provides very pertinent result pages, plus it is fast enough, and you can always !google or !wikipedia or else if not satisfied... Its recall is perhaps less than Google, but the smart handling of "spam" gives it a really nice precision. Never went on page 2!

ignu• 16 years ago

"which can often uniquely identify you."

"and potentially show up in unwanted places, like insurance, credit & background checks."

yeah, i'm pretty sure that's not a thing that can happen.

also, if you like the internet being free then you shouldn't mind seeing ads for your demographic that get a better roi and make more money for publishers of the content you don't pay for.

codeup3• 16 years ago

If you pay with your data instead of money, how does that make a service "free"? It would only be free if your data was worthless. But then they would not collect it in the first place.

Groxx7• 16 years ago

Be careful how you define value / cost / worth. It costs me nothing if they duplicate information I give them. It costs me something if it's used to abusively manipulate me. It pays me something if it's used to manipulate me (ie, what I see) in ways I approve of.

TomOfTTB2• 16 years ago

I don't see why this COULDN'T happen. There are already list brokers out there who buy information from retail outlets (all those "member" programs that collect what you buy). They then combine them into master lists to sell

In that same way if you search for Herpes and then are directed to a web site they'll have your IP and maybe a cookie. If you then go to another site and log in with your Facebook ID they'll have your IP, Name and Facebook ID.

So all it would take is an industrious list broker to start combining that info like they already do with offline info (and in fact probably combine that with the offline info to get even more comprehensive lists)

epi0Bauqu16• 16 years ago

It's already happening to various degrees, and that is just what we know about. See the three WSJ articles I linked to at the bottom of the post, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870464860457562... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870397700457539... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230441050457556...

Their whole privacy series (http://online.wsj.com/public/page/what-they-know-digital-pri...) taken together is what inspired this page. I urge anyone interested in what is really happening to read all the articles (13 so far).

gradschool• 16 years ago

I like the internet being free, but it was also free in the early days before advertising and tracking of users were prevalent. The "content" was mainly of an academic nature, which also wasn't such a bad thing. I don't mind publishers making money on the net, and I hope they don't mind me blocking their ads, but if push comes to shove, why should we care if they go out of business when the worst case scenario would probably consist of the net going back to the way it was before?

Groxx7• 16 years ago

Or, you could use https://encrypted.google.com which disables the referral[1]. You can also turn off the history[2].

Other info, like your IP address (which they partially anonymize after... 9/18/24 months (conflicting details)) and cookie[3] (which you can clear / block), is still stored. Odds are DDG does this too (edit: they don't, see replies), as it's mostly useful for overall statistics.

[1] http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer... [2]: http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=... [3]: http://www.google.com/privacy/faq.html#toc-terms-server-logs

nopal• 16 years ago

Other info, like your IP address...is still stored. Odds are DDG does this too, as it's mostly useful for overall statistics.

You could have checked this assertion by reading DDG's plain-language privacy policy:

When you access DuckDuckGo (or any Web site), your Web browser automatically sends information about your computer, e.g. your User agent and IP address.

Because this information could be used to link you to your searches, we do not log (store) it at all. This is a very unusual practice, but we feel it is an important step to protect your privacy.

Edit: TOS -> privacy policy

Groxx7• 16 years ago

>This is a very unusual practice

So I was close. They even admit the odds were in my favor. Thanks for the fact!

epi0Bauqu16• 16 years ago

We do not store IPs or have any personally identifying cookies (actually no cookies whatsoever by default). We don't store user agents either, which have also been shown to be able to uniquely identify you. Also, "partial anonymization" has been shown time and time again not to work. More details on our privacy stuff here: https://duckduckgo.com/privacy.html

Groxx7• 16 years ago

Yeah, there's been flack about Google's anonymization before. Specifically, they apparently remove the last 8 digits. Which allows you to (partially) reconstruct (some) people by tracing IP + cookie. A failed anonymization, absolutely, but blockable if you are already taking steps to actually guard your privacy online, as part-way-there is almost the same as nowhere-near when you have enough data.

Solved everywhere, of course, by anonymizing your IP address and blocking the cookie. And as you give your IP to the site you visit through DDG, as well as to their advertisers if you're not proactively blocking them (and those tools can fail / be nullified by a server transmission), extreme measures are the only effective means of actually protecting your privacy. As such, I don't find those two steps to be at all unexpected for someone who actually wishes to guard their privacy.

Sephr• 16 years ago

SSL doesn't disable the referrer header. It just happens to not be sent when the link you've clicked on isn't also using SSL. If the link you click on happens to be to an SSL site, they get the full referrer header as intended. A more appropriate way to hide the referrer is to just use a redirection that doesn't include the search terms.

fwdbureau• 16 years ago

I'm sure google is not as "evil" as those recent bashing campaigns tend to insinuate, but the fact is, if google could publish clearer, more-defined data-privacy or data-retention policies instead of the vague assertions you can find in their TOS, things would be clearer. The current situation is just feeding doubts, and nothing serious or accompanied by hard facts comes to contradict this illustrated guide

mariuskempe• 16 years ago

Agreed. The deeper you delve into Google's TOS, Privacy, or other legal-requirements pages, the more their corporate identity of 'fun and clear' dissolves.

zackola• 16 years ago

I've been using Duck Duck Go as my primary search for the last month - it's pretty great! And if you need to fallback to google because you want a map or something else there are a bunch of ! shortcuts to go right there. (!map is most frequently used by me)

rickr• 16 years ago

FYI:

!gm is a bit shorter and also goes to Google maps.

epi0Bauqu16• 16 years ago

!m is even shorter.

BrandonM• 16 years ago

I'm forever confused by technical users who laud DDG's ! support. I love DDG and use it as my primary search engine, but Firefox has featured keyword searches for years now. Any search box anywhere can be turned into a URL keyword search.

I use "m" for searching Google Maps, "im" for Google Images, "w" for Wikipedia, "dict" and "thes" for dictionary.com, "bt" for searching torrents, and the list goes on. Just yesterday I added one so that I can type "to 123 Main St 12345" in the Location Bar and it automatically gives me the Google Maps driving directions from my house to the indicated address.

It's as simple as right-clicking a search box and selecting "Add a Keyword for this Search...". Use it :)

JoshCole• 16 years ago

I second this post and want to mention that support for this exists in Chrome as well. You don't even need to grab an addon. The searchable bookmarks site, trunkly, turned me on to this feature. I nearly posted a Tell HN when I realized what I had been shown.

Add Keyword Search In Chrome: http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?answer=95...

Add Keyword Search In Firefox: http://lifehacker.com/397071/easily-manage-firefox-3-keyword...

Enjoy!

snarkyturtle• 16 years ago

I've been using keyword searches for longer than I've been using DDG but the thing is that instead of looking for a site to search on, you can just search for it on DDG and if there's a ! search for it you don't need to do the extra effort. It's essentially a precompiled search library with keywords that correspond to what you want to search for.

joakin3• 16 years ago

Here goes some feedback, hopefully we can gather some suggestions for Gabriel instead of saying 'Encrypted Google' all the time...

In my opinion (using my designer side) the site lacks basic design, the text is well written, and the images make it really easy to read, but its missing some eye candy. Something to do would be structure each argument as a page/slide, and make the reading more like slides or a book.

In my opinion, -quite ironic- you should have a look (copy format) from Google's 20thingsilearned [1], the book format, with the beautiful design and the animations would make the site stand out and more attractive to be read than it is now.

But dont do as them, there is a pretty good job done keeping the text short and concise but informative and clear.

If the site is kept well formatted as well as structured and 'playful' will continue to be a pleasure to read.

Good luck with the campaign, happy to help to my default search engine :)

[1] http://www.20thingsilearned.com/

Kadin• 16 years ago

Ugh, disagree. I detest the online-slideshow thing, and often wish people would just take their "slides" and put them on the same page and just let me scroll.

Whenever I see someone doing a slideshow-type presentation, my immediate assumption is that they are just dragging me through the process so they can get more eyeballs for their advertising. (Cf. much of Cracked.com and other "Top x Lists".)

There are things that could be done to make the page more appealing, if you're not into the lowdef look that I think they're going for intentionally, but breaking it into multiple pages if it does't really have to be is just obnoxious.

epi0Bauqu16• 16 years ago

Yes, I wanted to keep the lowdef look, though I'm happy to entertain any design changes within that look.

joakin3• 16 years ago

Ok, fair opinion, but if you look at the google website, It doesnt look neither spammy nor disgusting (at least for the regular user (i think). Its clean, informative, and fun to use.

Anyway, A/B test should give him the answer to which is the best way to aproach the Google non-techy crowd

notahacker• 16 years ago

Ironically your example site is not only a Google property, but also raises a "this website is asking to store data on your computer" security warning and runs horribly slowly in my browser (maybe I'm guilty of having too many tabs open, but maybe they're guilty of optimising for Chrome...). For casual browsing I'd much rather scroll than click the right hand side of the page and wait whilst Firefox thinks about running a page curl animation. Even with it working properly in Chrome I'd rather not be slowed down like that...

For Gabriel's intended audience (presumably social media) the simplicity and silly cat memes probably work perfectly well without attempting to make it beautiful.

For me, all the FUD simply makes me think "hang on, even if I use DuckDuckgo the site that built the Herpes landing page, optimised it for health advertisers and probably has Facebook widgets too gets all that information, and is far more likely to sell their data than Google...". I don't think HN is the target audience for that page.

Given the recent spate of articles on how scraper sites that DDG blocks pollute Google results, I'd think a similar info page about how DDG's spam blacklist would go down nicely now though...

aw3c22• 16 years ago

That site turned me off. I am using DDG as my primary search engine for many months now.

I really dislike the style and "atmosphere" of that site. The images are seemingly unordered and could use some borders. The images of the dog biting the women or the predator disgust me. Then some "motivationals" and memes that do not help the case.

This site gave me mental stress (the left-alignment of varied sized text and images maybe, maybe the white, maybe the images) and overall broke a chunk off the good impression the DDG creator gave me so far. I'd suggest either not making such weird site or at least make it properly designed.

(When I clicked the link I expected it to be related to the http://hackademix.net/2010/12/28/x-do-not-track-support-in-n... disaster which dramatically "uniquifies" your browser fingerprint so I started with a bad feeling. Thanks for adding ad-blocking recommendations though! And even more so: Tor!)

epi0Bauqu16• 16 years ago

Truly sorry about that -- of course not the intention. I tried to keep it as simple as possible, and didn't iterate much on the design. I'm open to design changes if anyone has any concrete ideas.

Personally I hate disgusting images, and didn't think those two rose to that level. If anyone has suggestions for equally good replacements, I'm fine with that too.

edw519• 16 years ago

Truly sorry about that...

Whenever anyone begins with "That site turned me off," it may be a good idea to hear their feedback, but it does not necessarily follow that they deserve an apology or that you need to act upon that feedback. I think you're dealing with an outlier, and we already know what trying to please them can lead to.

If anyone has suggestions for equally good replacements, I'm fine with that too.

Don't change a thing.

As Edward Everett said to Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg: "I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes."

benatkin• 16 years ago

The only thing that really annoyed me was the proper spelling of "now" in the lolcat.

samtp• 16 years ago

It looks like something that was thrown up quickly. If you have 'mental stress' because some pictures and text lacks design, the problem may be you, not the website.

aw3c22• 16 years ago

Surely that might be the case, I was simply stating my experience.

foljs3• 16 years ago

"This site gave me mental stress"

Take it easy, man! I mean, whatever...

Matt_Cutts7• 16 years ago

The first sentence when I stripped out the pictures was "When you search Google, and click on a link, your search term is sent to that site, along with your browser & computer info, which can often uniquely identify you."

Referrers are a part of the way the web has worked since before Google existed. They're a browser-level feature more than something related to specific websites. But if referrers bother you, just use the SSL version of Google to prevent referrers from being sent to http sites (or change your browser not to send referrers at all).

The corresponding sentence even for a website that strips referrers would be "When you search on domain X, and click on a link, your browser & computer info is sent to that site, which can often uniquely identify you."

Read more carefully in that light, the first sentence is really saying that third-party sites that you land on after searching or visiting a domain can track you. That's independent of whether you came from Google or any other search engine, of course.

epi0Bauqu16• 16 years ago

The referrer header is indeed a reality of HTTP, but that doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't work around that reality and correct for it, if it has real privacy implications, which I think it definitely does.

By getting rid of that header I think we take away a lot of private context, i.e. the actual search terms that landed you on that page, which in and of themselves can provide a lot of background into what was personally going on with that person on that page.

So yes, the first sentence is all about the referrer header. And yes, it is just one piece of the privacy puzzle, but it is one that I think can certainly be solved. It is also a piece I feel the average person knows nothing about.

Here's the original post when I made the change to make searches externally anonymous: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/05/duck-duck-go-sea...

Matt_Cutts7• 16 years ago

Yup, that was the same day we announced SSL search, which prevents referrers to http sites.

I don't begrudge you trying to make privacy a selling point for DDG, but donttrack.us felt like trying to paint Google with a pretty broad brush. Honestly, it reminded me of when Privacy International decided to give Google a worse privacy rating than any other company. Here's how I responded to Privacy International at the time: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/privacy-international-loses-al...

The fact is that Google has a good history of supporting privacy, from fighting overly broad subpoenas from the DOJ to SSL Search to creating a browser plugin to opt out of personalized advertising: http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/plugin/pluginfaq.html .

gojomo• 16 years ago

Mixing the 'search term' and 'browser & computer info' points in the same lead sentence is misleading, suggesting (again to the 'average' person) you're more different from Google than you are.

brudgers5• 16 years ago

If SSL was the default and sending headers was opt-in, it would probably add some weight to your argument. What Google actively promotes to the typical web user, however, is not SSL or anonymous search but rather features that collect user data to an ever greater degree, e.g. Toolbar, Instant Search, and the Chrome browser.

Matt_Cutts7• 16 years ago

SSL adds latency, because you're setting up an encrypted connection. Google hates slowing down users, and we don't want to slow down every user unless it's a clear win. That's one reason.

When Google switched to AJAX-based search, that temporarily stopped sending referrers, and lots of people screamed bloody murder. For example, http://getclicky.com/blog/150/googles-new-ajax-powered-searc... said "So what can we do about it? If you run a blog, write about this. Submit this story or your own story to large tech blogs like TechCrunch, CenterNetworks, ReadWriteWeb, GigaOm, etc - no large site has written about this yet, and one of them needs to. ... Do anything you can to spread the word and let Google know that this is not acceptable."

Or see http://www.seobook.com/Ad-Networks-Partners-Hoarding-Publish... or http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/3240-google-ajax-bad-news-fo... or http://blogs.sitepoint.com/2009/02/04/google-update-breaks-t... . So we heard lots of complaints.

SSL as an option provides a nice choice for people who care about these issues and don't mind taking a tiny hit in latency.

huertanix5• 16 years ago

Clicking on a link in a Google search results page creates a redirect URL that leads back to Google itself and logs the visit to your Google Web History if you are logged in. Its not a simple matter of referrals to third party websites. Its a personal detailed silo of personal information that Google sits on and can only stay private as long as Google can make good on its promise to.

DuckDuckGo, AFAIK doesn't log your searches or correlate your searches with a user account.

X-Istence• 16 years ago

Ignoring the search term being sent, browser and computer info is ALWAYS available to the target site, that is not something Google can even stop. Browser send information on who they are, JavaScript allows probing of what is installed, how big the screen is and all of that fun stuff.

So I don't see how that sentence is even fair at all, Duck Duck Go might stop the search term from being sent (and as a webmaster I'd hate that as it makes it harder to figure out how users are getting to my site), but they can't stop browser and computer info from being sent.

cletus2• 16 years ago

I have a question: does this policy of DDG violate their legal responsibilities? Thats a serious question. I believe that law enforcement requires some form of data retention but I'm not sure what.

epi0Bauqu16• 16 years ago

No, nothing that I've ever come across says you have to save and store peoples' personal information. If you have it, then you have to abide for legal requests for it, but if you don't have it, you don't have it.

dschobel• 16 years ago

As a caveat, I remember some techno-illiterate judge ruling that having the data in memory constituted a record with the implication that by not persisting the record/document you were intentionally destroying it. I'll try to find the link.

edit: found it

A federal judge in Los Angeles last week ruled (PDF) that a computer server's RAM, or random-access memory, is a tangible document that can be stored and must be turned over in a lawsuit.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/us-ruling-makes-server-ram-a-documen...

rayvega• 16 years ago

IANAL, but I don't think so. What law would that be? If I walk into any retail store and pay with cash, is the store owner required by law to get my personal info? No, they are not.

Perhaps in heavily regulated industries such as banking that might be different but search engines are not government regulated (for now).

tonfa2• 16 years ago

There are data retention laws in other parts of the world (many european countries for example).

DenisM• 16 years ago

It's a complicated subject. By law, you can not be compelled to create a document that didn't exist, but you can be compelled to produce a copy of the document that does exist. It becomes murky when you consider that IP addresses etc do enter the memory of the computer before being discarded, and thus can be argued to have temporarily formed a document.

There was at least one court case where a judge felt this was enough to say "you have the document, you must make a copy at my request". I don't remember the details of the case, and don't remember how it ended. I hope that sanity prevailed and the "thou can not be compelled to create a document" policy was reinterpreted in a more reasonable manner.

danielhfrank• 16 years ago

Could anyone comment on how much of this stuff could be sidestepped by just using an incognito window in Chrome? I don't mind ads targeted to, say, me as a Java developer. But, if I'm going to look up anything I'd rather others not know about, I simply pop open an incognito window and... am I good to go? Is there anything besides my IP address that can be read when I'm doing that?

Mithrandir2• 16 years ago

Incognito mode only blocks local storage of data. It doesn't block IP address, downloads, referrers, or user agents. There's also some concern on if it actually works at all. (See http://ask-leo.com/do_new_browser_features_offering_privacy_... )

brudgers5• 16 years ago

Chrome sends keystrokes typed into the address/search bar directly to Google.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/03/microsoft-goog...

potatolicious3• 16 years ago

Incognito is a pretty thin layer of privacy. What many systems will see is this:

"User foobaz123 logs in from IP u.v.w.x. Here we have a no-cookie session from IP u.v.w.x. This is probably foobaz123"

Any identity management system of modest complexity can do this with fairly good accuracy. So while they don't have you confirmed via an authentication cookie, it's certainly a far cry from total anonymity.

vitorbal• 16 years ago

I love the reference to the austin powers' "in a nutshell" scene, heheh.

motters• 16 years ago

I've been using DDG for a while, and have been very happy with it. IMHO they should focus on this privacy aspect, trying to be the most privacy respecting search engine, because it's a key product differentiator and it's also an issue which is only likely to grow in importance.

16s• 16 years ago

How will they make money? I agree with you. I like privacy, but ad supported search seems to be the only viable business model. Advertisers won't pay DDG b/c there's no one to target.

mike-cardwell2• 16 years ago

I assume they have various methods. One of the methods I noticed by accident was that they add their affiliate id to Amazon links in search results

kingsidharth• 16 years ago

Building a product that people use is first step. Money will follow, eventually. Google didn't have revenue model in place since first date.

rick_20472• 16 years ago

I seriously do not get this privacy sham. All of a sudden everybody and there uncle is very concious about some algorithms (that select the ad for you) knowing what they searched for. I mean even if I search for something inappropriate and then google ads algorithm knows what I searched for, big deal yaar whats the harm?

I presume referrer headers existed even before google and this privacy outrage. The thing I do not understand is, why this sudden conciousness about some database of what you searched online?

lylejohnson• 16 years ago

I don't think it's "all of a sudden," rather that as the web continues to grow up, more and more people are becoming aware that what they do or say on the web isn't as private as they might once have thought. As an aside, I think it first really clicked for me a few years back with the whole Netflix Prize situation, where even though the data was anonymized, smarter folks than I were able to demonstrate how you could personally identify a subscriber's profile from it.

huertanix5• 16 years ago

This isn't just a matter of advertising. Your search history is an incredibly personal and detailed profile of who you are, and governments have a history of trying to use that sort of information for $badThings. See: US DOJ request for search engine histories in 2005. There's a reason why librarians fought so hard to keep your book checkouts private when the Patriot Act passed. Search histories have a potential for abuse and their privacy should be an issue.

rick_20472• 16 years ago

Then don't select such a government. Last time I checked USA was a democracy.

jimmyswimmy• 16 years ago

Well, that finally worked for me. For the longest time I've seen the DDG "ads" on here and thought, "meh, Google works fine for me." Focusing on the privacy angle appealed to me, mainly because I like the idea of decoupling my search and email histories.

But - if you are so focused on not-tracking then how do you know if an advertising campaign such as this actually works? Presumably this is not the only campaign you are currently running. Must be the referrer string from donttrack.us, which is so amusingly ironic that I can't help but twist the corner of my mouth into a smirk.

Nice site, by the way, I found it clean, clear and readable. Scrolling and justification are no matter to me, I liked the simple single-page look.

zavulon• 16 years ago

I'm in the same boat - this has finally convinced me to give it a serious try. I've been using Google mostly in "private" mode in Chrome/FF for a while now, but that's not a real solution.

shimonamit2• 16 years ago

I'm still dreaming of a search engine that parses regular expressions. When that happens I'm there. Yesterday.

epi0Bauqu16• 16 years ago

I know this isn't exactly what you meant... http://thor.duckduckgo.com/?q=regexp+/(.*)/+ddg

Edit: Looks like yc cut off my link there--copy and paste the full thing.

shimonamit2• 16 years ago

I'll remember that. Thanks!

daten• 16 years ago

It would be an interesting day if someone could make regular expression searches over a large data set as fast as keyword or phrase searches against a sorted and indexed database.

They also need to make sure they use an implementation that doesn't suffer from exponential time[1] regular expressions.

[1] http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp1.html

util• 16 years ago

This basically exists for source code now: http://www.google.com/codesearch

eddieplan9• 16 years ago

Kudos to DDG. Finally a good alternative to the big G.

What scares me the most sometimes is when I think about how ubiquitous Google's ads network and analytics network are. Most of the websites I visit use AdSense and/or Google Analytics. Some are using Google's copy of popular javascript libraries like jQuery. This means that when you are moving from site A to site B to site C, there is a good chance that even though A or B or C does not know about it, Google knows your full browsing path and even how you move from one to another. I am not saying that Google is actually doing it, but it is scary someone has the capability to do it and to know more about you than the government and your mother do. It is important a significant portion of the website and our browsing activities are outside of Google's networks.

huertanix5• 16 years ago

Enter, Google Alarm: http://fffff.at/google-alarm/

btilly• 16 years ago

Some are using Google's copy of popular javascript libraries like jQuery. This means that when you are moving from site A to site B to site C, there is a good chance that even though A or B or C does not know about it, Google knows your full browsing path and even how you move from one to another.

Wrong.

When a browser gets a request for a JavaScript file that it has seen before, it returns a cached copy from the local hard drive rather than sending out a request to the website. Therefore sites that use Google's copy of jQuery are maximizing their chances of having browsers not make a round trip, rather than giving Google something that they can use for tracking.

Matt_Cutts7• 16 years ago

"I am not saying that Google is actually doing it, but it is scary someone has the capability to do it"

Uh, eddieplan9, you know that ISPs not only have this data but also your identity? Or that some ISPs sell that data to metrics companies? Here: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/03/isps_selling_cl/

It's always strange to me that people worry about Google, when ISPs have a superset of the data that Google sees, plus your identity.

pragmatic• 16 years ago

How does duck duck go make money?

I saw something about adding affiliate links to Amazon results. What else?

rmc• 16 years ago

But isn't the referral header and search terms good for the webmaster? It allows them to customize the website for their customers and allows them to find out what their customers are looking for.

marcusEting• 16 years ago

If you don't want to be tracked but still want to use google there are three great browser extensions which make that possible: http://techblog.willshouse.com/2011/01/03/three-extensions-t...

crnixon• 16 years ago

I like DuckDuckGo. I use it and it's a good search service. But I'm left with a question after this site:

Isn't Google's tracking a _good_ thing in many ways? I want sites to know what I've come searching for so they can present me peripheral content I want and I want Google to know my interests so that they show me ads related to those interests.

I agree Google could do more to alert users about what privacies they are giving up, and I'm glad there's good alternatives if you don't want that info tracked. I think not enough is made of the good side of Google's personalization, however.

mitko• 16 years ago

This page converted me. I'm giving DDG a test as my primary search.

andrewljohnson2• 16 years ago

There is a rash of this kind of marketing I see cropping up on Hacker News, marketing which promotes one company while badmouthing another. We saw it from Posterous, Adioso, and now DuckDuckGo.

* Adioso vs. Bing: http://blog.adioso.com/sorry-bing-adioso-is-still-the-worlds...

* Posterous vs. Tumblr (and others): http://blog.posterous.com/hey-tumblr-users-got-comments-want...

Setting aside whether or not you want to be perceived as cutthroat or just straight-up douchey, the real question is whether or not this the most effective spin.

I think it might be better just to talk about how great privacy is at DuckDuckGo, perhaps in comparison to other search engines in general.

DDG calling out Google individually, Adioso calling out Bing individually, or in the case of Posterous, calling out other startups, isn't how I would play the game.

dpapathanasiou• 16 years ago

I think it might be better just to talk about how great privacy is at DuckDuckGo, perhaps in comparison to other search engines in general.

Except there are no other search engines, in practical terms.

andrewljohnson2• 16 years ago

So why actually say Google? People will just get it, without having to single out a company. Let them make the leap.

epi0Bauqu16• 16 years ago

I'm obviously biased, but I thought about this a lot before doing this page. First off, I tried to take the informative approach, not the badmouthing approach. In fact, this is the most informative page about search privacy I know about. You may reasonably disagree I got there, but that was indeed the goal.

Second, for most people, Google is search. So not talking about them in the context of search is almost useless. In other words, there is no real way to talk up DDG privacy without explaining what happens when you use Google. It just isn't meaningful because most people don't know what the baseline is.

itistoday• 16 years ago

IHMO this is classy, smart marketing on your part. And it happens to be championing privacy concerns. More power to you.

pacemkr• 16 years ago

I believe I was one of the people who requested this. Namely, a better explanation of why DDG not tracking your search history is a big deal.

Implementation details aside, this page must exists and I applaud Gabriel for making it. Why? I must have been living under a rock, but I for one have never heard of https search for Google -- and I'm not exactly a computer newb.

Privacy should be the default, so "use secure Google" is a ridiculous response to legitimate privacy concerns.

Feedback:

1. I really appreciated how fast information is delivered. "One thing leads to another." And its very clear up to...

2. You lost me after the "Your profile can also be sold," with lolcat material. It really threw me off and I almost forgot what I was reading about. On my first run through the page, did not absorb ANY information past that point.

3. I only noticed the multiple (happens) links on the second run. Noticed one somewhere along the way on the first run, but not the reast. This is the important part. It tells me that this isn't a list of "imagine these unlikely events and fear", its a list of "did you know this actually happened."

4. The images establish pace for the reader, but, I can't stress it enough, they must communicate additional information. Up until the parental control cat we get a visual of what happens. I can also relate to the images because I've seen ads for "wacom tablets" follow me for months after I bought the freaking thing and I've seen the Google Analytics control panel. The image of the woman signifies that her profile is slowly building up. What information does the parental control cat or austin powers communicate?

5. The design is a little too bland, but as noted above, that's not the biggest problem. I wanted to link my friends to the page, but then got to the images and felt that the message would be lost on them as it was lost on me.

Hope this helps and thank you for making the page.

sz• 16 years ago

There ought to be a browser plugin for the paranoid... surely someone must have tried to make one?

mkramlich• 16 years ago

Awesome promotional/marketting angle. Smart way to compete against Google.

olalonde• 16 years ago

In case you're wondering how uniquely identifiable your browser is: https://panopticlick.eff.org/. "Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 1,328,173 tested so far."

Of course, this is regardless of Google.

Indyan• 16 years ago

I love DDG, and am a DDG user. Nevertheless there are two things in this guide that bothered me: i) No Referrers: I consider this to be essential information for the webmaster. It allows him to know what is working, and what isn't. If DDG becomes popular, it will kill the search analytics market. It's a niche product right now, and that's why it can afford to do this and Google can't (SSL isn't the default option).

ii) Adblock et all: By advising users to use Adblock, once again you are encouraging users to do something that can cripple the web as we know it.

yycom• 16 years ago

Adblock et all: By advising users to use Adblock, once again you are encouraging users to do something that can cripple the web as we know it.

That's the point.

lisperforlife• 16 years ago

http://www.google.com/search?q=rails vs https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rails

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=python vs http://www.google.com/search?q=rails

I rest my case. Don't get me wrong. I like DDG but this campaign seems like spreading FUD. BTW, I use https by default.

gregable• 16 years ago

As a practical matter, surfing from an https:// URL doesn't strictly strip referrers (in Google, DDG, or otherwise). SSL is intended to hide your data from the network, not the destination, so every browser I've tested will send referrers from https://SiteA.com/ to https://SiteB.com/ as long as both the referring and destination URLs are both https://

kolinko• 16 years ago

There is a thin line between "fighting for what's right (privacy)" and "building paranoia to earn profit" and I think DDG just crossed it :(

I like the search engine and I wish them all the best (seriously), but this method of advertising is bad.

ssn• 16 years ago

Too much FUD.

alexfarran• 16 years ago

Does it really matter that DDG works around the referer header when embarrassingillness.com/herpes has your IP address, and anything else your browser sends to them.

klync• 16 years ago

bookmarking, delicious-ing, resending to ( / spamming) all my friends and family ....

ddg rules and this finally puts my pov into nice, simple, pretty pictures.

W00t!

pedanticfreak• 16 years ago

I think the more appropriate summary is that DuckDuckGo proactively guards your privacy. Google is completely aware of privacy issues, but allows privacy to slip through the sieve by being indecisive about what to do about it.

veidr• 16 years ago

I don't think this is an important indictment of Google at all, but I do think it is an important warning (mainly because of its simplicity and digestibility) to those people who don't understand how the interweb tubes work.

For instance, I forwarded the entire page as-is (Cmd-I in Safari if you have Apple's Mail configured) to my little sister.

Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide

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