Technology

35129 readers

107 users here now

This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.

Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.

Rules:

1: All Lemmy rules apply

2: Do not post low effort posts

3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff

4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.

5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)

6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist

7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

MinutePhrase@lemmy.ml

204

DuckDuckGo starting to give more "personal" search results (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 months ago by Cataphract@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Been slowly running into more results from DDG that seem to have some "personal parameter" or difference in search results. I had a search saved from some months ago, went to check it for some references and got new hits involving local organizations that had nothing to do with the search. Opening up a private browser I see that the searches aren't 100% matching up either.

I see this as only getting worse, I want to be able to enter a search and it searches for my query. Not based on my personality or whatever info is being collected. Does anyone know a search engine that's reliable and focuses on giving the same results and doesn't try this "personalized" crap?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I’ve noticed this too. Not only what you stated, but how the search terms aren’t always respected; ie they do similar terms, even if the term or phrase is in quotes (the quotes should mean exact matches only). They also do a lot of filtering of the results if they feel I shouldn’t be seeing them. I can take my same search query from DDG to Google and most of the time find what I’m looking for.

If I understand DDG correctly, they use Microsoft Bing as their backend for search results. So while they may be branded DDG, the results are in fact out of DDG’a control. It also means we are more subject to Microsoft’s privacy policy than we are to DDG’s.

I’ve been wanting to move away from DDG because of these reasons, but have been unable to find good alternatives. Hopefully someone here can make good suggestions.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

DDG uses a bunch of different sources, it's not just rebranded bing.

also DDG does not send any personal info to its partners, so Microsoft's privacy policy is not relevant.

OP's concern is that DDG itself is keeping your personal info and using that to weigh your search results. But that also directly contradicts DDG's privacy policy, so it's either a major breach of trust or I think more likely OP is reading into varying search results too much.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The page you link to talks about the search results that come at the top of the page, eg a Wikipedia or Trip Advisor result. The actual search itself comes from Bing, and it's more than likely that the top page banner also is processed via Bing.

Edit: However, the Wikipedia page does provide more detail, which proves you right and my assumption wrong:

DuckDuckGo's results are a compilation of "over 400" sources according to itself, including Bing, Yahoo! Search BOSS, Wolfram Alpha, Yandex, and its own web crawler (the DuckDuckBot); but none from Google. It also uses data from crowdsourced sites such as Wikipedia, to populate knowledge panel boxes to the right of the search results.

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I appreciate both your and @acosmichippo@lemmy.world’s responses. I certainly was not aware of the expanded set of results that DDG use. Nor was I aware that they anonymized the queries they send to their search partners.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

If I understand DDG correctly, they use Microsoft Bing as their backend for search results. So while they may be branded DDG, the results are in fact out of DDG’a control. It also means we are more subject to Microsoft’s privacy policy than we are to DDG’s.

This is exactly right. DDG is basically a front end that's supposed to strip out identifying information and then submit your request to Microsoft. [Edit:] Apparently they have expanded from this, according to their Wikipedia page. [/E]

However, after seeing TV ads for DDG not that long ago I kind of lost what faith I had left in them. As a rule of thumb, I've never trusted products and services advertised on TV - TV advertising is expensive, and the business expects to make that expense back and then some from their customers.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

However, after seeing TV ads for DDG not that long ago I kind of lost what faith I had left in them. As a rule of thumb, I’ve never trusted products and services advertised on TV - TV advertising is expensive, and the business expects to make that expense back and then some from their customers.

DDG doesn't claim to be non-profit or anything. Their business model is based on revenue from advertising targeted solely from the search queries themselves, not from stored personal data.