“DuckDuckGo, you were the chosen one!” exclaimed one melodramatic tweeter, posting a Star Wars GIF of Obi Wan Kenobi declaring: “It was said you would destroy the Sith, not join them!”Īnd one revolutionary added: “Money and the sheer power they hold will bring down civilization. “Yes, how dirty foul of them to tell everyone what they were doing when they were doing it,” quipped another. “What’s a browser you can really trust?” replied one jaded tweeter. Responses on the social media platform ranged from blank resignation to outright mockery. However, if Edwards was hoping to whip up a Twitter storm over the issue, he might be disappointed.

“The DDG browser stops data flows from tons of domains - except DDG's No.1 ad tech partner.” An uprising postponed? “I don't think there is a public list of all the domains the DuckDuckGo browser is not blocking, but they seem to be doing this with hardcoded rules,” he added. If you say you block third-party data flows, do that,” he said. “I think that both Google and Apple have an obligation to users within their marketplaces to remove apps which claim to do X, Y, Z, but do the opposite, merely because it makes the parent company more money.

“If you are a privacy researcher at DDG, do you think it's appropriate to push rhetoric about why this is a good browser, knowing that there are global data brokers - your own partners - who you are purposefully not stopping data flows for, on domains they don't own?” he asked, before taking aim at Google Play and App Store for allowing the DDG browser apps to be featured on their stores in the first place. “At that point, Microsoft will use your full IP address and user-agent string so that it can properly process the ad click and charge the advertiser.”Ĭommenting on the statement, Edwards said: “But you won't find any public articles from DuckDuckGo explaining why they are not blocking Microsoft-owned third-party data flows on websites not owned by Microsoft.”Įdwards declined to put his theory as to why that was in words, instead posting a meme of a beautiful woman peeling off a fat wad of dollar bills. “If you click on a Microsoft-provided ad, you will be redirected to the advertiser’s landing page through Microsoft’s landing platform,” it said. DDG has itself publicly acknowledged a data-sharing partnership with Microsoft.

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