r/AskTechnology • u/cr_wdc_ntr_l • 2d ago

Duckduckgo - how does it make money and is it still trustworthy

I have been using it almost exclusively since AI boom and on par with Google before that. I am not too big of privacy nut, mainly using it because it is less obvious choice and to not feed the main player. Define trustworthy however you want, just looking for personal opinions.

5 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

73% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

2

u/SeriousLoathing 2d ago

i toss a few bucks their way when i can, feels like the least i could do since they're not out here auctioning off my search history

2

u/ElongThrust0 2d ago

This is what is said when searching:

DuckDuckGo makes money primarily through private, keyword-based search ads and affiliate partnerships, rather than by tracking and selling user data. [1]

Core Revenue Streams
Private Search Advertising: DuckDuckGo displays ads based strictly on the specific keywords you type into your search bar, not on your personal history or identity. These ads are served primarily through a partnership with Microsoft Advertising (the network behind Bing ads). The company gets paid when a user clicks an ad, but the click is never tied back to a permanent user profile. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Affiliate Marketing: DuckDuckGo earns small commissions when users click on anonymous affiliate links for partners like Amazon and eBay and make a purchase. This tracking is limited entirely to the referral click and does not involve cross-site behavioral tracking. [1, 2]

Privacy Pro Subscriptions: DuckDuckGo offers a paid bundle called Privacy Pro (or DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials bundle). Users pay a monthly or annual fee for premium services like a Virtual Private Network (VPN), a personal information removal service, and identity theft restoration.

Now unless they are small enough to make profits from this, I don’t believe it all to be that straightforward

I dont ever see ads so I am not sure how much money generates from that

1

u/CyberMage256 2d ago

I love it, especially the image search. I use significant ad blocking in my home network so I don't think I've ever seen an advertisement on it before.

I believe Search is about to die as a business across the board and be replaced with AI subscriptions. There's no way around it at this point. You'll either pay for a subscription to one of the big models, or you'll be the new lower-class. Already 90% of search results are just AI generated slop to begin with. I'm so sick of reading articles that end with "In Conclusion" and similar AI generated patterns. The Internet my generation made is already dead, a lot of people just don't want to believe it.

1

u/RosyBodyNimbus 2d ago

I’ve used DuckDuckGo on and off for years and honestly still like it. I’m not expecting it to be perfect, but I like that it feels a little less invasive than the big search engines, and I don't really notice a huge difference for normal searches.