Is the whole privacy on search thing really a big issue?
I, for one, want Google to be all Orwellian on me because it will mean better search results. I had a scenario like this a few days ago when I googled for "fabric" -- Being a Python developer I was looking for http://fabfile.org and it shows up as the second result while logged in. If I'm not, it won't show up.
This may be the outlier state of mind on HN, but I think in general, as-in billboard advertising, it's not an issue. Am I wrong?
Is the whole privacy on search thing really a big issue?
Of course it is. Google and Facebook have been pushing the bounds of privacy repeatedly over the years because it is in their financial best interest to do so.
Their primary product isn't search or communication or maps. Their product is plain and simple people's personal information. And, becuase they are a corporation in the USA they are legally bound to maximize shareholder value.
So, of course Google and Facebook have to erode the concept of online privacy. That is their product and that is the value that they are legally bound to maximize.
If they were very clear and up front about this issue, and communicated that information in plain language to their users that would be one thing. But, they don't.
Google doesn't every plainly say, "We track your location with your android phone. We track your searches on Google. We track what sites you visit though our advertising network. We track who you email when you use Gmail. If you use our calendar, we know what your schedule is. We track who you call when you use Google Voice. And, we want you to trust us to do the right thing with that data. We make a crap load of money using everything that we know about you to let other people sell stuff to you. Oh, and by the way, the government can have access to all that data without a search warrant."
So, yes, I do think the privacy issue is pretty important. You have a couple of massive corporations who are for all intents and purposes forced to erode people's concept of privacy. And, if people are going to compete with Google, one of the areas they are very vulnerable is in the area of privacy. Gabriel has been kicking their ass on this, and it's an area where they are vulnerable to competitors.
I say more power to DDG. It's a conversation that needs to be had, and more people need to know about this.
> they are legally bound to maximize shareholder value
Can you point to a single instance where a company was forced to commit some act that its managers reasonably thought was morally wrong because of the "law" that companies must maximize shareholder value? Personally I think this trope has no basis in fact and cannot explain why Google or any other company is compelled to do things that are wrong.
There are many possible reasons why they would do something you disagree with: maybe they don't think it's wrong. Maybe they actively want to do something bad. Maybe you are not correct in your beliefs about what they are doing. But I think the reason you gave why they need to violate people's privacy is a cop out.
There are also a number of counter-examples where corporations fail to maximize shareholder profits by donating to charity, taking principled environmental stances, etc. I don't know how you or anyone could come to the conclusion that the U.S. legal system rigidly enforces absolute profit maximization.
> Oh, and by the way, the government can have access to all that data without a search warrant.
"Can you point to a single instance where a company was forced to commit some act that its managers reasonably thought was morally wrong because of the "law" that companies must maximize shareholder value?"
I can point to companies that sell tainted drugs, products that contain lead paint, that dump toxic materials in rivers, do shoddy work on oil wells, etc. They don't do this because they are required to maximize shareholder value. They do it because of their pursuit of money. The difference isn't a meaningful one in my mind.
I think if the law was changed and companies were forced to consider societal interest then perhaps things would change for the better. Perhaps not. As it is, the law is a bad one in my opinion.
I don't understand the purpose of your post. I didn't come close to claiming otherwise. I'm not claiming otherwise.
I provided examples of companies doing bad stuff in the pursuit of money. I opined that a change in the law is needed. The fact that companies doing bad stuff does not equal companies being legally required to bad stuff supports my position. That is, even though there is no law requiring companies to do bad stuff they still sometimes do. I suggested that a change in the law might lead to companies doing bad stuff less frequently.
Again, I don't understand the purpose of your post. Can you clarify?
You responded to a post arguing against the notion that companies are legally required to do things that are wrong for profit. You responded with an argument that many companies had done things wrong for profit, but without proving that they are legally required to do so. So your response was basically irrelevant, and the GP is pointing that out.
As a technical matter, there are a number of ways that laws already require companies to consider the broad interests of society. Environmental regulations, taxes, tort law, and various other similar regulations, not to mention the natural pressure that the best interest of society tends to be somewhat compatible with profit, all influence companies to choose the option that is best for society as a whole most of the time. I wonder what specific law you are proposing when you say that laws should be changed to make companies consider the "societal interest."
No one is claiming that the law that corporation are required to try to maximize shareholder value is the same thing as requiring companies to do bad things. Some people, me included, are saying that there are unintended consequences with this law and that some companies do bad things in an effort to maximize profit (increase shareholder value).
Pointing out that companies doing bad things is not the same thing as legally requiring them to do bad things is a red herring. It's not germane to the discussion at hand.
On the contrary, the claim in the original post is exactly that Google must do bad things because of some unnamed law that corporations must maximize shareholder value. Specifically:
"So, of course Google and Facebook have to erode the concept of online privacy [i.e. do bad things]. That is their product and that is the value that they are legally bound to maximize [i.e. the reason they must do bad things is because they are legally required to]."
That is what I was responding to when you responded to me. Since you are so mistaken about what exactly the discussion at hand is, I don't know how you can claim to know what is germane to it.
If your intention was not to answer the question you quoted, it would have been best not to quote it, because it looks like you are trying to answer it.
No one is claiming that the law that corporation are required to try to maximize shareholder value is the same thing as requiring companies to do bad things. Some people, me included, are saying that there are unintended consequences with this law and that some companies do bad things in an effort to maximize profit (increase shareholder value).
Pointing out that companies doing bad things is not the same thing as legally requiring them to do bad things is a red herring. It's not germane to the discussion at hand.
The best (but not the only) example of a corporation acting immorally to maximize shareholder value is Ford.
Prior to the release of the Ford Pinto, Ford's managers were fully aware of a design flaw in the Ford Pinto. As most people know, the gas tank on the car made the car explode in a ball of flames if it was involved in a rear end collision.
Ford's management compared the costs of a redesign to the costs associated with wrongful death lawsuits resulting from this design flaw. It was cheaper for them to pay the wrongful death lawsuits, so that's the decision that was made. It's very clear that this decision was made in an effort to maximize shareholder value, and did not take ethics into consideration whatsoever.
More information on this topic at the link below (Link is "Let Me Duck Duck Go That For You, since DDG is the primary topic of this thread):
> Can you point to a single instance where a company was forced to commit some act that its managers reasonably thought was morally wrong because of the "law" that companies must maximize shareholder value?
Tobacco companies concealing evidence that nicotine is addictive is sort of the textbook case for this, though you are correct that it is not a law as such. Pretty much every corporation has in its charter a mandate to maximize shareholder value within certain constraints.
Can you point to a single instance where a company was forced to commit some act that its managers reasonably thought was morally wrong because of the "law" that companies must maximize shareholder value? Personally I think this trope has no basis in fact and cannot explain why Google or any other company is compelled to do things that are wrong.
Really? I'm surprised that you have a problem believing that people who manage companies might do things of dubious moral value in order to maximize profit. But, if you insist...
It could be easily argued that BP, Halliburton, et al... maximized shareholder value over environmental safety concerns.
The current recession is largely due to financial services companies creating derivatives out of sub prime mortgages. That is, bundling toxic debt and making it look like a AAA rated investment and selling it for profit.
Enron's "...reported financial condition was sustained substantially by institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud, known as the "Enron scandal""
IBM made a lot of money selling automation systems so the Nazi's could efficiently kill millions in the Holocaust.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
Chiquita Brands has admitted to sponsoring terrorist organizations in Latin America
> Oh, and by the way, the government can have access to all that data without a search warrant.
Don't know where you are getting this from.
Really??? If you insist...
"Under this program, referred to by the Bush administration as the "terrorist surveillance program", part of the broader President's Surveillance Program, the NSA is authorized by executive order to monitor, without search warrants, phone calls, e-mails, Internet activity, text messaging, and other communication involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the U.S., even if the other end of the communication lies within the U.S." [1]
You have given plenty of examples of morally wrong things being done for financial gain. That is not news. People have been corrupt and greedy for thousands of years.
What you have failed to do is show any evidence at all that companies are legally obliged to be corrupt and greedy.
On your link about warrantless surveillance, scroll down to the long section on legal issues. While there is no question that the government asked for, and got, a lot of that information, the legality of the request is quite a different matter.
And now for the concrete counter-example, when the NSA asked for Qwest's cooperation, they didn't get it. This decision has materially affected Qwest's financials because they were shut out of a lucrative NSA contract.
Now show me the shareholder lawsuit against Qwest for failing to maximize shareholder value by refusing the NSA on this matter.
All your corporation-evil links fail because they do not show that any law requires this behavior. Please actually answer my question rather than other questions which I did not ask.
Your NSA link fails for two reasons. First, anyone can access your data without a search warrant if they do it illegally. It is deceptive to suggest that the USG can legally access your data without a search warrant. Second, as a technical matter, the USG can intercept communication between Google and you, but does not have access to Google's stored data. The concern is over the data that is going to be stored since obviously that communication between you and Google was going to happen anyway. DDG is no more safe from this attack surface than Google except inasmuch as they offer SSL search, which Google offers as well.
For what it's worth, I'm not saying that Corporations are legally bound to do immoral things. My argument is that people within corporations are required do to things that are in the corporations and the shareholders best interest.
And, that pressure at times causes people within corporations to do actions of questionable morality.
If the goal is privacy, there are many search engines respecting privacy already. The goal is better search results!
Since I don't have a Google account and ban many evil domain names such as googleanalytics.com, facebook.com, they can't track my information already. for me, there is no need to use a search engine with crappy user interface.
Are they passing on search terms for previous searches or just the current search?
In your (frankly terrifying) example, would the site have had to have ranked for "naked bieber pics", showing up in the results and then you click it to pull the search terms? Because that would seem to be pretty innocuous.
Just the current search, but the problem is millions of pages run third-party ads, and most are run by very few networks. These ad networks can aggregate the terms and then they have previous searches as well.
People find ways around it, for example for a while Flash didn't respect incognito so ad networks just used their cookies instead (I think at one point html5 storage was being used too, but could be wrong).
There's been various HN posts about how people circumvent browser privacy settings to track you across websites and even tricks such as generating an almost unique key by hashing together browser, fonts installed, IP address, etc.. I'm not sure of the current state of play in that war though.
I guess if you really don't want people to track private searches with your accounts, use a whole other browser where you're not logged into Google in incognito mode.
You got the oft-excluded part of the quote right -- temporary security -- but the actual quote is, "he who would trade Essential Liberty for some Temporary Security, deserves neither Liberty or Security."
Many people omit the word, "temporary". The suspicious part of me says they do it so their (mis-quoted) statement appears more bold and uncompromising.
When you click a link, you usually send the refferrer url to the site you go to. Naturally google's search terms are a very easy to parse and a well known url. So when you click a site's link they know that you came from google and that you searched for xyz.
Duck duck go actually redirects you in a way so that the referrer is not known to the site. They all think you came from duckduckgo.com. DDG also keeps no logs. Basically your own activity online cannot be used against you.
Now, privacy aside, I really like DDG for other reasons, like search relevance, continuous scrolling, zero-click info, etc. So its kind of win-win for me.
I am fairly sure that the issue is the browser passing on the referrer, not that Google is making websites aware of any additional information. I might be wrong, of course; there's a lot of FUD about this floating around.
That doesn't mean Google couldn't or shouldn't prevent the browser from doing it.
When this all started, no one envisioned ad networks and data companies aggregating all this personal information, or even that search terms would be a central part of the Internet.
So now that we know what is going on, why allow this personal information to leak? As far as I can tell, the only reason is so Webmasters can do better at Google SEO. And that reason can be wholly mitigated through the use of Google's Webmaster Tools.
Please don't make the argument that the data in our webmaster console is equivalent to the data that websites can currently find in their server logs, because that's not the case.
Hi Matt. Is there any technical reason why that tool can't provide full information? Clearly Google isn't opposed to not sending referrer data, given the existence of https search, but doesn't DDG have a point about third parties having access to the referrer data? (Full disclosure: I wrote this article)
Firefox (at least) will still send referrer info when you navigate to a https: site from encrypted Google. You can change this in about:config by changing network.http.sendSecureXSiteReferrer to false.
You do realize this breaks the ability of www.example.com to track its traffic? They have now lost the information as to how their search rank is performing on Google, and have acquired incorrect information that they think you typed in www.example.com directly.
You're entirely within legal rights to do this, of course. But if everyone did, then sites would have no idea where their traffic is coming from. Morally it is a bit questionable: your browser is blatantly and directly lying to www.example.com about how you got there.
Even if the site owner doesn't know that the referring url contained the search term "naked beiber pics" they still know you visited their page which most likely contains "naked beiber pics".
Unfortunately, normal people don't know how to turn them off or use the https version. Google could do a lot of things to make this easier.
The best would be to just prevent ad networks from collecting this personal information altogether. The only reason I've heard against doing so is that webmasters need search terms for SEO, but they can get them via Webmaster tools.
Failing that, they could make a setting in the http version that turns off the headers. They could also make a setting that defaults to https. And they could make https easier to get to. Currently you can't even do https://google.com/ (you have to type in www.)
Having spoken to Gabriel offline, because I was building my own search engine, he cares quite a bit about this issue. A ton of us in tech clain to care about privacy, but very few of us put their balls (and actions) where their beliefs are. DuckDuckGo's privacy policy has been in place for quite some time. And, it's only been recently that he's advertised it.
Anyone who really cares can - and will - use HTTPS.
EDIT: It appears that at least one person disagrees with me. So, a quick question: Which takes more effort for the end user, switching to a new search engine or switching to https?
I can tell you that normal people who care also don't know about HTTPS or how to use it. I'm all for Google making it easier to do so, or otherwise stop this personal information from leaking. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2122431 for some ideas.
Also, FWIW, HTTPS alone doesn't solve the issue completely, as HTTPS->HTTPS traffic still leaks.
It knows that fabric means something in textiles, geology, etc, and that it has multiple meanings in computing. To get Python, just click 'more meanings'
EDIT: I guess my point was already made, so in order to contribute something to the conversation, I'll add this: if there's anything wrong with your search result, you can just click the feedback button in the corner, explain what it is ('not showing official site for x', etc) and it gets fixed really fast.
> Not sure why this hasn't been said yet (maybe I missed it), but dukgo.com already has this figured out.
Or better yet, search for "fabric python" and be done with it, no need for Google storing all your searches at the expense of you typing a few more characters once in a while.
The same word is likely to mean different things to different people. DDG doesn't have the infrastructure to handle this, Google has (with Search History). What you get with DDG is generic Bing results, lightly filered and in a different UI.
I would prefer the web to be better classified and less "guessing".
For my queries google has been guessing wrong most of the time and putting results of things i didnt search for in the top results page.
With the bangs and the zero-click duck aproaches what I think is a really good solution, for 'fabric' you get :
http://duckduckgo.com/?q=fabric
Which has in the zero click info all the meanings (including the python library), and if you would want python related results just do:
http://duckduckgo.com/?q=python+fabric
And it works beautifully...
I agree, when I search for "fabric" I want to see the same results (more or less) on whichever computer I'm on - logged in to Google or not.
If I want information on the fabric python library I just search for "python fabric" - works on DuckDuckGo as noted above and also works just fine on Google.
"spying on people" is a really unfair way to describe what happens when you voluntarily share your information with a third party who is in turn subpoenaed.
You should be taking issue with the governments demanding the records rather than expecting these companies to break the law on your behalf.
Few spies self-identify as someone who hurts innocent people. They think of themselves as supporting their family while helping their government or something.
Don't focus on what nouns different parts of the spying apparatus choose to label themselves with, or what other functions they serve. Instead, consider their effects in the context of being a spying apparatus.
But how is it spying if you use the service voluntarily, they tell you exactly that they collect and often (always?) let you opt out of the collection.
Well, consider spies in WW2, specifically the "loose lips sink ships" variety.
The spies that saying warns of were not crawling around in vents with night vision goggles, they were your friends, neighbors, and coworkers who would relay semi-public information to a processing center that used the info towards harmful ends.
I see this situation as a direct analogue. We communicate naturally with a supposedly disinterested or trustworthy party, who then collects that information and distributes it to others, without our best interests in mind.
Do Google and Yahoo actually have a policy of only turning over information to governments when subpoenaed, or otherwise legally compelled, and promise not to voluntarily turn over such information in the absence of a court order? I can't find any solid statements on that from either company.
The simple answer is wherever they have operations. I don't think it is unreasonable to say that if you are going to run ops within a country you implicitly have to follow the law of the land.
That being said, thinking they shouldn't be in a particular country which obligates them to do these things is a much more sound position than just saying they shouldn't follow the law in a few particular cases.
Ultimately, if you know they are operating in a country with a government which likes to do these sorts of things, caveat utilitor. (At least, try not to look so surprised when the police come knocking.)
"An Indian man is facing five years in jail for making an "offensive" comment [against Sonya Ghandi] after Google handed his personal data to local police."
Distortion. That's not Google spying on people. The guy use Orkut, a social network website, surely there's his account information there.
The personal data that is handed over is email address of the account. It's probably a privacy violation if it's really that hard to find out someone's email address once you know his social network account, but it's not spying on people.
Ok, maybe, if it worked. But Google results have been tanking in quality. So now I vote for privacy. DuckDuckGo gives me quality results without being creepy.
I, for one, want Google to be all Orwellian on me because it will mean better search results.
Will it necessarily mean better search results or will it mean that you will be subjected to personalized spam produced by those who game Google's system? I think history shows that there will be at least a little of the latter.
i don't think it's an outlier state of mind at all ... in fact at this stage the majority of people in the US aren't concerned about search privacy.
but, y'know, DuckDuckGo doesn't have to get the majority of people. with their incredibly low costs, if they can get their search market share to even 1%, they can be hugely profitable. and there are at least that many people who care.
So you seriously want to give up your privacy (and ours as well) to save you typing one freaking word (python)? That's lazy to the point of being offensive.
That's being a bit pedantic, he's just using it as a colorful way of saying that he doesn't mind them keeping track of what he's done, and he backs it up with a really good reason.
For anyone wondering, this comment has changed. After being told by ericd he was being a pedantic ass and downvoted he edited the comment. This isn't what it originally said.
More FUD from DuckDuckGo about Google and privacy issues. Didn't we come to the conclusion that the things they are railing against Google for are applicable to any and every Website?
That's disingenuous. DDG has legitimate claim to "Google tracks you" beyond just referrer URLs.
When you search for "athlete's foot" on DDG you won't see an add for foot cream the next time you're watching a video on YouTube. That's the sort of tracking Google undeniably does do that users may find troubling (I know I do).
Most users don't know about this level of tracking. Moreover, while referral URLs containing search terms has been the norm for a long time (and IMHO, is not an evil move, just legacy from a privacy perspective), there is no real reason why things must stay this way.
No, you cannot opt-out of the referrer header. However, you can use the SSL version, which doesn't send it in most cases (still sends it for HTTPS->HTTPS traffic).
Then that is their ONLY claim against Google (yet not Google alone). Everything else on that donttrack.us page is applicable to any and every search engine or Website. I believe DDG is being disingenuous by making it sound like this a Google-only thing. Even if Google is the big guy they want to go after, they should be up front that this is not something that makes Google evil or is specific to Google.
donttrack.us also rips on third-party ad networks that are non-Google for extending the tracking even further. This also seems to be the core reason why DDG rails against search terms in referral URLs, since it's a major enabler for third-party network tracking.
So yes, DDG is targeting the 800# gorilla in its marketing, but it's not unjustified, nor has DDG claimed on the donttrack.us page that Google is the sole culprit in the destruction of user privacy.
There's a certain amount of opportunism in this billboard/privacy ad campaign here, that much is obvious. But, as a search engine it does not seem unreasonable to call out the failings of your main competitor.
>donttrack.us also rips on third-party ad networks that are non-Google for extending the tracking even further
On the site it says "Those sites usually have third-party ads. and those third-parties build profiles about you,"
How are they able to do this? Because Google lets them. That's the message they are sending across to people. The entire campaign is anti-Google only in nature. It's not this fair and balanced reporting on privacy that you're making it out to be.
>nor has DDG claimed on the donttrack.us page that Google is the sole culprit in the destruction of user privacy
Their campaign only talks about Google. That's the only name and logo they ever show or speak of.
> "That's the message they are sending across to people."
Which is true.
> "The entire campaign is anti-Google only in nature."
Well, yes. DDG is a search engine. They are targeting their chief competitor, a search engine, in their marketing.
> "It's not this fair and balanced reporting on privacy that you're making it out to be."
Correction: it's not a comprehensive guide to everything online that violates your privacy. But donttrack.us never claimed to be. You seem to be under the impression that the intent for donttrack.us is an entirely selfless, complete, and comprehensive guide. Now, I'm not affiliated with DDG, but it seems absurd to derive that from the site.
The way I see it is: yes, they're targeting Google, but that's not exactly unfair given that Google is DDG's chief competitor. If you were Subway, running attack ads on McDonald's on the obesity angle, why would you waste your breath also ripping apart I Can't Believe It's Not Butter?
Nothing DDG has said is false, nor (IMHO) have they deceived their users by omission. Everything in this campaign is accurate. I simply don't see the outrage.
Now, whether or not the privacy issue is even worth fretting about, or whether using DDG will reverse the tide of privacy destruction that you're exposed to everywhere else, that's another issue entirely. DDG hasn't claimed that switching from Google will fix all of your privacy woes, but what they do claim is that it will fix the privacy violation that Google directly allows. That seems fair enough.
I'm not deriving that aspect of my argument from the site. I'm deriving it from your argument that it is balanced and makes mention of things outside of Google ("third parties").
>If you were Subway, running attack ads on McDonald's on the obesity angle, why would you waste your breath also ripping apart I Can't Believe It's Not Butter?
If Subway ran an anti-obesity campaign and only mentioned McDonald's I would feel the same way about it because you're making your largest competitor seem worse than they really are by failing to tell the whole story. If you're not going to disclose the entire truth about an industry you shouldn't bother delivering the half-truth simply because it's not worth your time to attack smaller fish.
>Nothing DDG has said is false, nor (IMHO) have they deceived their users by omission
But it is disingenuous to make it appear that Google is the sole search engine or Website that does this or affects users in this way, which is what you said I was being when I made the claim that this is just anti-Google FUD, which it is.
>DDG hasn't claimed that switching from Google will fix all of your privacy woes
That's the impression that I get from donttrack.us and I'm sure that was intentional.
An ad that says "Google, Bing, Yahoo all do bad thing X. Our search engine that you never heard of before this ad does not!", one response in the readers mind might be "If all the ones I heard of do X, maybe it isn't bad".
If an ad is going to mention competitors, it is best to just name one competitor in cases like this, where the reader might not have heard of you before.
If the market is more even, mentioning others might be OK. For example, if Honda put in some new safety feature in the CR-V, it would be OK for them to name the Toyota RAV4 and Subaru Forester in their ads, because all three companies are well known to most readers.
>one response in the readers mind might be "If all the ones I heard of do X, maybe it isn't bad"
Somehow I doubt a reader can frame what donttrack.us says in a good light if you also include Bing and Yahoo. It talks about shady employees, getting hacked, people finding out you have herpes, etc.
>If the market is more even, mentioning others might be OK
>it would be OK for them to name the Toyota RAV4 and Subaru Forester in their ads, because all three companies are well known to most readers
Google, Bing, and Yahoo are known by basically everyone, so I think there is some inconsistency with your argument. That, or you're conflating market-share and mind-share.
Matt's comment is, basically, no fair for criticizing us for incontestably true things which are intrinsic to our business model. That was only fair when w were the scrappy underdog taking on the uncaring megacorp with the unassailable market position.
I doubt the Chronicle is still paying for that, it just means no paying replacement has been found so it hasn't been covered / removed. That could mean it's REALLY expensive to advertise there, though it's more likely it's just not a prime advertising site.
Still, what's a full page ad in Wired set you back? Solid PR play by DDG.
I know this comes up every now and again...but I find the length of the domain name a barrier to entry. I think building a brand around "DuckDuckGo" is an upward battle.
This is one of the biggest reasons I don't use DuckDuckGo yet. Seems trivial, but for me it's certainly a barrier to entry. I'd say the second biggest reason is the annoying user interface (gaudy effects like large lime green backgrounds when you roll over search results, etc.)
> I'd say the second biggest reason is the annoying user interface
DuckDuckGo is the first website that made me want to install a browser plugin to change the way the page looks. (As for other websites that had a look I didn't like, I simply stopped visiting them.)
The problem with installing plugins, though, is that I use several browsers on several computers, and to get a consistent look, I'd have to customize all of them (if possible).
You can customize a fair amount DuckDuckGo's UI using the settings page[1], most notably hover highlighting, color scheme, and header placement (fixed vs scrolling).
That's what bookmark is for. `Google' is not easy to type either, at least compared to `bing'.
I put DuckDuckGo at position 3 of Safari's bookmark bar (position 1 being bookmarklet from instapaper and position 2 being bookmarklet for my posterious blog). Then I could just press command-3, and type `!w Al Franken' or `!w faithful place' or `!python tempfile'. Pretty sweet IMHO.
I think google is actually easier (or as easy) to type compared to bing. Look at the position of your fingers as you type it.. the repetition of G/O and the close proximity of L/E respectively makes it a easy to type without looking at the keyboard.
I'm surprised he's only paying $7000 to put up a massive billboard next to a major consumer route for a month. I'm sure billboard advertising doesn't have great conversion rates, but I still imagined that would cost more.
Anyone care to comment on their experiences with billboard ads?
I think the return on investment probably needs to (and intends to) include the public relations events (like the Wired article) created, as well as direct conversion rates.
It's entirely possible DDG / Gabriel will have more new users from that article than from a month of the billboard, but of course the article wouldn't have been written if he hadn't done something novel like old-school advertising a new-school product.
I'm all for a good story, and the one-man DDG going up against Google is certainly a great one. However, considering the number of armchair business analysts on HN I'm shocked that nobody seems to call out Gabriel for appearing to fall into a cliched trap: "we don't track you" isn't a product, it's a feature.
I genuinely wonder what DDG would do if Google simply addressed all of their referrer privacy issues. Then what, exactly? Would DDG simply pack up and go home?
I changed to Duck Duck Go in Chrome a couple weeks ago to do just this and didn't make it past three days. I was looking forward to getting rid of content mills (which was the reason I wanted to try DDG for a week), but the lack of things like local results and search completion drove me absolutely batty.
Great to hear. I like what you're doing and will definitely continue to check it out when you add new features. I don't agree with your stance on referrers (which isn't a Google problem any more than it's a HN problem), but I like rooting for the little guy.
Thank you, and I can appreciate that position. However, I think it is a search engine problem because search terms often contain sensitive personal information and they're embedded in the referrer, whereas HN links don't contain such info.
Thx--would appreciate you sending me queries that didn't work for you (if you can recall any you're willing to share): http://duckduckgo.com/feedback.html
Sure! While I can't recall any on the top of my head (I'll be sure to send you some if I come across it again - will make an effort to try again at a later date), it's usually more to deal with very specific technical terms. Maybe overly specific? Will report if I have any issues.
I'm assuming the goal of this billboard was to attract attention to DuckDuckGo, not to live up to the marketing "cliche traps" you mention. By attacking Google on Google's turf, not only will he put himself in front of a lot of influencers, but also was able to make the billboard itself a news item.
If the billboard had said "Find what you need faster" (a benefit of special search syntax), it wouldn't be a story. But this billboard is a story.
P.S. Kind of reminds me of when the local KFC put an ad on the billboard that towered over the local Boston Market. It said: "They don't know beans about chicken in Boston." (This was in SC, btw.)
This is really big deal. Every time I fail to find a great co-founder, I just look up to Gabriel and decide to not give up even if I've to run my company as a solo founder. Running a company as a solo-founder is not new. We've many successful solo founders on HN. But running a Search engine is a really big deal, where many big companies have failed. So respect to Gabriel is even more...
Turning off HTTP_REFERER doesn't sound like a very good idea. How would you be able to tell how people found you? Knowing what link someone came in from is a great way to see where your site fits into this world wide web of ours.
It sounds to me as if the only issue is 3rd party ad networks. The antidote to this seems to me to be more reasonably the web browser's jurisdiction, ie. making the cookie policy more restrictive by default.
I don't remember anyone ever discussing the referrer as being an issue before 3rd party ad networks became so prevalent.
This type of tracking exists for loads of other types of marketing, too. Promo codes, questionnaires that say "where did you find us?" and things like that.
Above all, there's nothing a website can do maliciously with that information alone. An IP address and the page you came in from, that's all there is. The only thing of concern is a feature being provided by the browser which allows spammer.com to write to a cookie that was created by facebook.com right?
I think that sending around the referrer is a necessary part of the interconnectedness of the web. I've noticed in my referral strings before that other bloggers have linked to articles which I wrote, then I've stopped past that blogger's site to have a read of their stuff.
I've noticed a sharp rise recently in services making use of 3rd party cookies, though: FB connect and OAuth generally, and all of Google's stuff (I use a separate browser to stay logged into gmail and calendar so that I'm not logged in as far as Google is concerned for my normal browsing).
What about having sandboxed browser instances which segment off your various web apps in their own little silos?
No, you're right it doesn't. But when you sign in with the same identity around the place, that identity is then stored in lots of different places so my perception of being "tracked" has certainly increased with the advent of OAuth.
Open an English dictionary (the Oxford one if you're serious), and come back. Note my fault if tbl didn't know how to speak English corectly backed then.
Surely whether or not the RFC's authors know how to spell a word has no bearing on how sensible it is to correct the spelling of "HTTP_REFERER"? I mean, if dools had said "HTTP referer" then you might have had a point, but "HTTP_REFERER" unambiguously refers to the name of the header field.
I think Wired picked entirely the wrong privacy issue to highlight in this article. Yes, my browser spews the refer(r)er all over. So what?
The referer isn't giving away any private information that the URL of the site isn't giving away already, and as a web publisher, I understand the value of knowing the exact set of terms the user used.
However, I love DuckDuckGo, and try to use it wherever possible, because of other privacy concerns that matter much more to me. The biggest thing I like about DDG is that it doesn't collect or store search history.
I have nothing against GW and I wish him well, but what kind of guarantee do I have of his claim that he doesn't log my search queries? (I realize that the "Referer" thing is indeed verifiable.)
Why would he? He has no advertising to use it for. He doesn't want the government to be able to subpoena him. (They can't ask for information he doesn't have.) And it would pretty much kill the business he's been building for 3 years if it came out that he was logging information that he's been loudly claiming that he doesn't.
Not knowing which keywords referred visitors would be terribly annoying to webmasters. Unless you're using dodgy 3rd party advertisers, I don't see what's so bad about aggregating referrer data.
I have a feeling Google might be keen to hold onto their duck.com domain a little longer :)
If I don't buy the "Feel sorry for me! Prop up my business!" argument when the newspapers make it, and I don't buy it when the record companies make it, why should I buy it when people running websites make it?
When I go into a shop and buy a newspaper, the shop owner doesn't know how I came to the decision of going to that shop.
They would like to know this information, and could probably do better business if they did know it. But it would be a breach of my privacy for them to know this information without even asking me for it.
I don't see why websites should continue to be treated differently, just because historically they have been...
Yeah, unless someone registers for your website, your not going to be able to do much more than tag a search term with an IP so you can know that someone arrived with search term x and did y on the website, but nothing about who that person is.
It depends which side of the fence your on really, if you use this kind of data to improve your business your for it. If you operate in areas that don't rely on it at all your more likely to be against it.
So if Google blurs referrers by default, instead of just people who opt for HTTPS search, but then more webmasters become more tightly bound to Google Webmaster Tools for necessary analytics, is that a net win for consumers and search engine diversity?
I doubt most webmasters will endeavor to learn N different webmaster control panels, so this recommendation further advantages the leader.
Google might very well respond to the pressure of this campaign by saying, "OK, you got us, we'll change", then laugh all the way to the even-stronger-monopoly bank.
Makes sense from what perspective, optimizing for whom?
My concern is that compared to referrer-leaking of terms – a standard way to inform webmasters, the same for all search engines – using the Google Webmaster Tools encourages webmasters to develop non-portable Google-specific skills. This cements the leader's position even further.
If your top concern is privacy, Google blurring referrers will help. If your top concern is competition in search and analytics, it hurts.
> My concern is that compared to referrer-leaking of terms -- a standard way to inform webmasters, the same for all search engines -- using the Google Webmaster Tools encourages webmasters to develop non-portable Google-specific skills. This cements the leader's position even further.
What's the point of looking at search engine terms except to optimize for them in some way? The optimization is going to be based on a search engine algorithm, and with Google being the most common search engine that's the one most people are going to optimize for.
That was my point: if you're trying to compete in search and analytics, it's not in a vacuum; it's in the context of a specific company's search algorithm. It only makes sense to tweak your performance by referring to that company's website, e.g. Google Webmaster Tools.
Because you can't do second level aggregation, for example you wouldn't be able to see which keywords are resulting in high bounces (i.e. what are our users looking for but not finding) or high revenue ("what should we focus our advertising on@), etc.
It strikes me as kind of odd that the billboard says "We", implying that DuckDuckGo is a company of multiple people.
Then again, saying "I don't track you" would sound extremely strange.
I guess we (as a society) have become so accustomed to companies requiring large groups of people to be successful. I guess Gabe's ability to take on Google, the biggest tech company this decade, by himself, is a testament to computer programming being so empowering.
I understand the privacy concerns, but not the FUD about the referrer. Just turn it off and you're done! There's even a Firefox addon that allows site-specific settings.
A quick (and perhaps slightly offtopic) question, what's DDG's revenue model? Is it just an experiment right now, and if so how is Gabriel funding this?
He has an about me page somewhere, but he sold a business a while back for a relatively large amount and I assume he could live off that forever, so money certainly isn't a concern for him.
Actually there seem to be a good number of jobs in Pittsburgh, but I know nothing about the natural environs that way.
In California, if you work in Silicon Valley you can always live down in the Santa Cruz mountains. If you work in SF you can live in Marin. It is often faster to go from Marin to SOMA than it is to go from the Sunset or Richmond to SOMA. I can't say it's a quick commute from the SC mountains to anywhere, but the option is there. I know Apple has a shuttle bus from Santa Cruz to Cupertino, maybe other firms do, too.
NYC metro is not great for stargazing but I was surprised that there are nice places for hiking upstate, and in NJ and CT. Even Vermont and the Berkshires are accessible for weekend trips.
If DDG is highlighting its search privacy, why doesn't the website default to HTTPS? (I know there is more the search privacy than HTTPS, but it would reinforce the "secure" search messaging.)
I wonder if you can change the text in a couple of week to ".. still tracking. We still don't". This should give those curious another push to go and just try DDG.
Anyone else think there should be a DuckDuckGo of browsers that is similarly proactive about privacy? There way more ways than just cookies to track people nowadays and it's about time we implemented default behavior in the browser to block them. There's no reason to wait for Google or Mozilla to do it for us either.
I would use this, most definitely. Sign me up. I don't think Google or Mozilla would do it.
I think an interesting option would be to have a "what you can know about me" table in the browser that you could fill out. Location, interests, etc. -Your web experience is customizable, but on your terms.
I'm sure I'm not alone in that I read HN comments before I hit an article, often because so many articles are linkbait, misleading, lacking content, overly saturated in ads, etc. I very, very rarely click through to TechCrunch articles, for example, as they're rarely satisfying.
If the comments suggest the article is especially worth reading, then I'll click on. If they don't say much about the article itself or suggest that it's not worth the click, I feel as though I haven't rewarded average behaviour with that page view.
In this case, I checked the HN comments for a direct link to the image because that's honestly all I wanted to see - the design and wording of the billboard. I didn't want the article, comments, masthead, everything else that comes with a news site pageload these days. I use AdBlock so the ads weren't going to reward the site owner and I'd just be chewing up extra bandwidth. When I didn't see a link to the image, I wondered if anyone else might've been looking for one too and thought I'd put one up. Easy to click for those who wanted it, easy to ignore for everyone else.
I assume the couple of downvotes are people thinking along your lines, or being against deep-linking?
I, for one, want Google to be all Orwellian on me because it will mean better search results. I had a scenario like this a few days ago when I googled for "fabric" -- Being a Python developer I was looking for http://fabfile.org and it shows up as the second result while logged in. If I'm not, it won't show up.
This may be the outlier state of mind on HN, but I think in general, as-in billboard advertising, it's not an issue. Am I wrong?