While I appreciate this response from the CEO, I still think that he and DDG lack creativity. Again it is not about actually replacing Bing but having leverage on Microsoft. DDG pays Microsoft a whole lot of money I imagine for that search, so it shouldn’t take much for them keep their promises on privacy.
In fact the way I read this, I just see someone who is essentially saying they’d rather have good search results if it means sacrificing privacy.
What makes you think they can get significant leverage on MS, a company that is literally on the order of 1,000 times bigger (Wikipedia says DDG has about 150 employees, to MS's 182,000 and market cap of 2 trillion!).
In fact the way I read this, I just see someone who is essentially saying they’d rather have good search results if it means sacrificing privacy.