The cynic in me says that it all starts like this. With multiple, gradual ToS changes, eventually, it will become like any other company out there. And what if Yahoo acquires DDG?
* Offer something for free, with VC money.
* Gain market share since you don't need to worry about profit.
* Realise you need to make money, so start turning into the companies you stole market share from.
Just want to point out that although that may be a model for many startups, DuckDuckGo is already profitable through (non-tracking) advertising and affiliate revenue. More info: https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates
I think it's very, very reasonable to be skeptical of any claims about DDGs actual concern about privacy. Actions speak far louder than words.
Gabe made his first few million by making a classmates.com clone that was the opposite of respectful about privacy. Those actions made clear that he has no ethical or moral stance regarding privacy, and that he will happily violate privacy for profit.
Add to that the fact that he took venture funding. Venture funding aims for a maximized exit price, not a moral stance. The moral stance will disappear the moment your site gains meaningful traction. It's what Ayn Rand (one of your founder's favorte authors) would have wanted.
DDG users who care about privacy are, to be blunt, laughably gullible. Your current business is pro-privacy because:
1) the search context creates sufficient value even without the personal target; and
2) the tech is a dumb layer on top of other tech, and it can't provide personalizaton.
As such, yegg's pretending he cares about privacy... but he's just selling the limitations of his lousy tech as benefits. It's a PT Barnum move. As soon as the tech is better, the privacy will disappear.
I don't want to be rude, but I don't think DuckDuckGo has actually taken much market share to worry about yet, so maybe it's not following the usual startup route.
Maybe. It's not difficult to be profitable though. Servers are cheap. I don't think it's going to trouble Google though, which is a shame. We could do with some serious search competition.
Might have used the wrong term, but the above comment was dead earlier, and several of his other comments are dead despite not seeming to violate any rules.
