DuckDuckGo Produces Privacy Income

August 10, 2021

DuckDuckGo advertises that it protects user privacy and does not have targeted ads in search results. Despite its small size, protecting user privacy makes DuckDuckGo a viable alternative to Google. TechRepublic delves into DuckDuckGo’s profits and how privacy is a big money maker in the article, “How DuckDuckGo Makes Money Selling Selling Search, Not Privacy.” DuckDuckGo has had profitable margins since 2014 and made over $100 million in 2020.

Google, Bing, and other companies interested in selling personal data say that it is a necessary evil in order for search and other services to work. DuckDuckGo says that’s not true and the company’s CEO Gabriel Weinberg said:

“It’s actually a big myth that search engines need to track your personal search history to make money or deliver quality search results. Almost all of the money search engines make (including Google) is based on the keywords you type in, without knowing anything about you, including your search history or the seemingly endless amounts of additional data points they have collected about registered and non-registered users alike. In fact, search advertisers buy search ads by bidding on keywords, not people….This keyword-based advertising is our primary business model.”

Weinberg continued that search engines do not need to track as much personal information as they do to personalize customer experiences or make money. Search engines and other online services could limit the amount of user data they track and still generate a profit.

Google made over $147 billion in 2020, but DuckDuckGo’s $100 million is not a small number either. DuckDuckGo’s market share is greater than Bing’s and, if limited to the US market, its market share is second to Google. DuckDuckGo is a like the Little Engine That Could. It is a hard working marketing operation and it keeps chugging along while batting the privacy beach ball along the Madison Avenue sidewalk.

Whitney Grace, August 10, 2021

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Advertising, News, Privacy, Search

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.