Privacy-Focused DuckDuckGo Search Engine Says Traffic Has Soared Since Snowden Leaks

Privacy-Focused DuckDuckGo Search Engine Says Traffic Has Soared Since Snowden Leaks

flickr/pixlshared
By Andrew Lumby

If you haven’t yet heard about DuckDuckGo, you probably will soon.

On its face, the search engine looks much the same as any other. A little more sparse, maybe, but nothing much separating it from, say, Google. There’s a logo and a box for your search.

Where it differs from its peers, though, is what happens when you hit enter.

Though silly in name, DuckDuckGo has a serious ethos: protection of user privacy at all costs. The engine, launched in 2009, shies away from the personalized filter bubbles so adored by search giants like Google and Bing, refusing to track searches or store user data. Users have the option to completely anonymize their search by routing it through the anonymizing TOR network, rendering it even more invisible to prying eyes. DuckDuckGo earns money through simple keyword-targeted advertising, steering clear of the tracking cookies used by more sophisticated ad campaigns.

Though the slavish dedication to privacy has its drawbacks — for example, results are less tailored to the user searching for them, and thus more likely to be irrelevant — the search engine has seen 3 billion searches a year and has a firm community of fans who are attracted to the site’s long-standing defense of user privacy.

Related: News Companies Have Good Reason to Fear Facebook

That ethos seems to be paying off. Gabe Weinberg, CEO of the Pennsylvania-based company, told CNBC last week that the search engine’s traffic has grown 600 percent since Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations about the large-scale spying conducted by the government. DuckDuckGo’s search traffic was further assisted last year when Apple integrated it into the Safari mobile browser.

DuckDuckGo’s traffic is still tiny compared to the big players — the 3 billion searches a year that Weinberg claimed to have on CNBC is pretty much the same amount of searches that Google traffics in a single day. But DuckDuckGo expects steady growth as average users become increasingly educated about their privacy.

Chart of the Day: Long Way to Go on Coronavirus Testing

Healthcare workers with ChristianaCare test people with symptoms of the coronavirus in a drive-thru in the parking lot of Chase
Jennifer Corbett
By The Fiscal Times Staff

The White House on Friday unveiled plans for a new effort to ramp up testing for Covid-19, which experts say is an essential part of limiting the spread of the virus. This chart from Vox gives a sense of just how far the U.S. has to go to catch up to other countries that are dealing with the pandemic, including South Korea, the leading virus screener with 3,692 tests per million people. The U.S., by comparison, has done about 23 tests per million people as of March 12.

After Spending $2 Billion, Air Force Bails Out on Planned Upgrades of B-2 Bombers

The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber flies over the Missouri Sky after taking off from the Whiteman Air For..
© Hyungwon Kang / Reuters
By The Fiscal Times Staff

The Air Force has scrapped a planned upgrade of its B-2 stealth bomber fleet — even after spending $2 billion on the effort — because defense contractor Northrup Grumman didn’t have the necessary software expertise to complete the project on time and on budget, Bloomberg’s Anthony Capaccio reports, citing the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer.

Ellen Lord, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, told reporters that the nearly $2 billion that had already been spent on the program wasn’t wasted because “we are still going to get upgraded electronic displays.”

Big Hurdle for Sanders’ Plan to Cancel Student Debt

Chip East / REUTERS
By The Fiscal Times Staff

Bernie Sanders wants to eliminate $1.6 trillion in student debt, to be paid for by a tax on financial transactions, but doing so won’t be easy, says Josh Mitchell of The Wall Street Journal.  

The main problem for Sanders is that most Americans don’t support the plan, with 57% of respondents in a poll last fall saying they oppose the idea of canceling all student debt. And the politics are particularly thorny for Sanders as he prepares for a likely general election run, Mitchell says: “Among the strongest opponents are groups Democrats hope to peel away from President Trump: Rust Belt voters, independents, whites, men and voters in rural areas.”

Number of the Day: $7 Million

NY mayor cites climate stance in endorsing Obama
Reuters
By The Fiscal Times Staff

That’s how much Michael Bloomberg is spending per day in his pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination, according to new monthly filings with the Federal Election Commission. “In January alone, Bloomberg dropped more than $220 million on his free-spending presidential campaign,” The Hill says. “That breaks down to about $7.1 million a day, $300,000 an hour or $5,000 per minute.”