Is Google Search Dominance under any threat?
September 5th, 2018. You might not know the significance of this date. It’s a high possibility that not many in your community even know about it, but for the internet privacy fraternity, September 5th was a date worth remembering. No, Facebook didn’t turn 15 that day or even cross the 1 trillion mark in valuables. It was a date worth remembering due to a House Committee hearing that featured Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and in days to come, Facebook and Google CEOs Mark Zuckerburg and Sunder Pichai testified in front of house committees on how their platforms are using and selling your personal details with any input from the owners of the data. It was an extreme violation of privacy and breach of trust on the part of these multi-billion dollar corporations, which quite honestly have become a huge and critical part of our day-to-day lives.
All of us have heard about the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Scandal and the role Facebook has played in influencing elections around the globe but especially in the US 2016 Presidential Elections. How a certain unknown foreign entity(insert Russia) meddled in the sacred process by specifically targeting one presidential candidate(insert Hillary Clinton) with a plethora of fake & negative posts customized for a specific type of audience.
All of these scandals have enabled a market for platforms that are more pro-privacy oriented, and not just in social media platforms. DuckDuckGo is a search engine rivaling Google that is picking up some steam in recent years, and its demand has even forced Google to add DuckDuckGo in their Chrome Browser as a default search option.
So it becomes even more imperative, especially for those who are looking for a pro-privacy search engine, to know as much about them(at least the important parts), and make the right choice for them.
First, DuckDuckGo isn’t the first privacy-centric browser out there, but it sure is one of the most famous ones.
To learn about some of the top Alternatives to Google Search, click here.
The sudden rise of DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is not a new player in the internet browser market. Started in 2008, DuckDuckGo was a self-funded engine by founder Weinberg, founder of Names Database, a now-defunct social network.
The real rise of prominence for DuckDuckGo came after the leaks regarding the NSA PRISM program and how the US government is spying on every single being on this plane. Many analysts equate this as a turning point for DuckDuckGo.
But that is not necessarily the case, as privacy was the people’s concern even before the NSA leaks. But yes, it created a market for the people, and DuckDuckGo was the biggest beneficiary., and was getting 45 million hits per month by October 2012. (update: As of April 2020, DuckDuckGo is at 60 million hits per day)
Weinberg’s non-ambitious goals make him a particularly odd and dangerous competitor online. He can do almost everything that Google or Bing can’t because it could damage their business models, and if users figure out that they like the DuckDuckGo way better, Weinberg could damage the big boys without even really trying. It’s asymmetrical digital warfare, and his backers at Union Square Ventures say Google is vulnerable.
An Article in Washington Post on the rise of DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is one of the top search browsers out there, and by all estimations, it will continue to grow.
Read Google adds DuckDuckGo in Google Chrome.
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