The battle of the search engines is heating up and now Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo's CEO, has subtly attacked Google and asserts that tracking is not imperative to generate profits.
For the unfamiliar, DuckDuckGo is a default search option in the Safari browser. Even though google is available for Safari as the default search engine option, with the arrival of iOS 8, Apple started offering an in-built search alternative i.e. DuckDuckGo.
At the Hacker News Q&A session, Weinberg was quizzed that if DuckDuckGo did not generate revenue, the company would vanish from the scene.
The CEO responded that the search alternative is lucrative despite not tracking the behavior of its users. He did not miss the opportunity to take potshots at Google either.
"It is a myth that you need to track people to make money in Web search. Most of the money is still made without tracking people by showing you ads based on your keyword, i.e. type in car and get a car ad," explained Weinberg.
He is of the belief that these adverts are only profitable as prospective consumers have the inclination to purchase. The remaining tracking he opines is "for the rest of the Internet without this search intent."
During the Q&A, Weinberg also spilled the beans on how NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's disclosures fueled the search alternative's growth. It was not just this event but other occurrences which also led to the growth spurts for DuckDuckGo. One such example is Google altering its privacy policy in 2012 to enable tracking of all its online services.
However, he also divulged that other events have resulted in growth spikes. In 2012, Google changed its privacy policy to allow tracking across all of its online services.
With concerns on privacy rising there is an increase in insecurity among users who are paranoid about their actions being monitored and if their data is being protected. DuckDuckGo feeds on this insecurity, assuring its users that unlike rival Google, it does not track user data.
"What you search for is your own business and we'd like to keep it that way. That's why we don't collect any personal information and therefore, have none to share," assures DuckDuckGo.
