Definitely, in the world of the Internet no one can be trusted . At the beginning of this year, DuckDuckGo Browser released a set of new features, such as anti-tracking, which made it without a doubt the most secure browser for Android.
However, everything seems to indicate that the popular duck browser abused our trust and lied to us about the level of privacy it supposedly offers. That’s right, it has been revealed that DuckDuckGo has an agreement with Microsoft not to block its trackers . You want to know more? Well, we’ll tell you all about this controversy right away.
It is well known that DuckDuckGo has a good business relationship with Microsoft. In fact, its search engine feeds on one of Bill Gates’ multinational services, Bing , to offer a greater number of results. And this has its price. In the terms and conditions of DuckDuckGo it can be read that, if the user enters a Microsoft advertisement, the browser will provide its IP to the Microsoft advertising service .
And this is not the worst. The relationship between DuckDuckGo and the tech giant runs much deeper than the browser’s developers admit. Security expert @thezedwards revealed in a Twitter thread the results of a recent investigation he conducted. It shows that DuckDuckGo Browser does not block Microsoft trackers on third-party websites, such as Facebook’s Workplace .
Sometimes you find something so disturbing during an audit, you’ve gotta check/recheck because you assume that *something* must be broken in the test.
But I’m confident now.
The new @DuckDuckGo browsers for iOS/Android don’t block Microsoft data flows, for LinkedIn or Bing.🧵 pic.twitter.com/ol7Ydfo3BJ
— ℨ𝔞𝔠𝔥 𝔈𝔡𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔰 (@thezedwards) May 23, 2022
In the face of this controversy, Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO of DuckDuckGo , has spoken out. This has responded by arguing that Microsoft does not have access to what the user is looking for in the browser , since it blocks all the cookies used by Bill Gates’ company.
However, when visiting a third-party website that contains Microsoft trackers, DuckDuckGo Browser cannot prevent user data from being exposed to services such as Bing and LinkedIn . Why? Well, because of the agreement they have signed with Microsoft that prevents them from making certain restrictions on the properties of this technology giant.
Finally, the CEO adds that they are currently working to improve the agreements they have with Microsoft for the privacy of their users. And while this may sound pretty hopeful, it’s questionable that DuckDuckGo hasn’t talked publicly about these privacy holes in its browser.
And you… Will you continue to trust DuckDuckGo after this controversy?
