DuckDuckGo, a search engine that doesn’t track user data, is growing like crazy, with three billion searches a year.
Gabriel Weinberg, who founded DuckDuckGo in 2008, explained to The Guardian why people are flocking to his search engine:
“Google tracks you on all of these other sites because they run huge advertising networks and other properties like Gmail and photos … so they need that search engine data to track you. That’s why ads follow you round the internet,” said Weinberg.
By focusing on web search alone, DuckDuckGo avoids the need for tracking. Weinberg said: “What consumers don’t really understand is that their data is being leaked for other reasons they don’t even realise.”
He adds browsing in incognito mode does not protect web users from tracking. “Google is still tracking you, your ISP still knows where you’re going.”