
Google owns duck.com and points it directly at Google search - davidbarker
https://twitter.com/duckduckgo/status/1019565939317202944
======
DannyBee
As fun as this crazy conspiracy theory is, this is because Google acquired The
Duck Corporation (which is what On2 used to be called), which owned duck.com.
They basically predate DDG.

(they were acquired in 2009, ddg was started late 2008)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The difference seems to be that on2.com has an appropriate landing page:
[https://twitter.com/Richiesque/status/1019973138417938432](https://twitter.com/Richiesque/status/1019973138417938432)

Whereas duck.com, a commonly interesting domain name for their competitor
(which DDG claims confuses a lot of their users), gets redirected to Google's
search engine with no other note whatsoever. Shouldn't duck.com have a similar
page to on2.com?

~~~
btian
What about Pulse.io? It also redirects to google.com

I believe most of Google's acquisitions redirect to the search engine (unless
there's a more appropriate destination).

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I know meebo.com is another acquisition that leads to a landing page rather
than a redirect to Google.com. My guess is who puts what on what server and
whether or not it's a redirect depends heavily on who is involved in the post-
acquisition work, since Google is a big company.

I'm not discounting the possibility that it's innocuous, but it's strange that
even among the _same acquisition_ , one domain goes to google.com and one goes
to a landing page explaining the acquisition.

EDIT note: DannyBee's opinion here was posted around the same time as this
comment, and suggests a specific corporate strategy:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17570412](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17570412)

------
thaumaturgy
According to the internet archive, it started redirecting between November 2
and December 3 of 2010.

After mining a bit of HN history, DDG was already up and running and seeing
some use by then (ex.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1334720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1334720)).

The issue of the duck.com domain came up back in 2012:

> _He also said his company had tried to buy the duck.com domain from its
> previous owner, On2 Technologies, but was rejected. Google eventually
> acquired the domain when it bought the entire company, and redirects
> duck.com traffic to Google.com._

> _" It only started redirecting after we inquired about (buying the domain
> name)," said Weinberg. "It causes confusion."_

[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-11-21/business/sns-r...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-11-21/business/sns-
rt-us-google-duckduckgobre8al00i-20121121_1_instant-search-feature-google-s-
chrome-search-engine)

(with some wonderfully vitriolic best-of-HN comments at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4817466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4817466)
\-- including a reply from ~yegg explaining his position about this.)

edit: Neat, I was able to find DDG's debut on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315142](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315142)

That was on September 25, 2008. Google's offer to On2 was in August of 2009
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On2_Technologies#Acquisition_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On2_Technologies#Acquisition_by_Google))
(the actual acquisition came later, after Google increased its offer). To be
clear, I'm not convinced Google bought On2 just to screw with DDG. But the
timeline is not as cut-and-dried as some people are making it out to be.

~~~
mankash666
Come on!! Google didn't lawyer up and force a 3-word, confusing brand down
Weinberg's throat.

If you want to compete with a market leader, whose domain is 2.5 syllables
long, and you pick a confusing, 3 word megadomain for a brand, you don't get
to cry foul over Duck.com !

~~~
bassman9000
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4817812](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4817812)

 _The main issue I have is with duck.com. A lot of people remember that we are
a search engine "duck something" and so naturally try duck.com. As a result,
there is a lot of confusion, e.g.:_

 _" I was telling someone about DuckDuckGo and they thought it was Duck.com
and they went to Google. Is Google using this to find people who make the
mistake to Duck.com instead of DuckDuckGo?"_

 _" Can't you do something about this? I keep going to Duck.com when meaning
to visit DuckDuckGo.com They are using the DuckDuckGo name to get people to
search Google."_

FTFC

------
mankash666
Duck!=DuckDuckGo.

If you're picking an awfully long name to compete against what is already a
2.5 syllable verb (Google), who's to blame?

Then there's the whole, "But our users only remember Duck" straw-man. Whose
fault is that? Google's? Did they lawyer up and force a 3 word, 5+ syllable
megaword as a brand/domain on you, when it defies common sense to pick LONG
names for a service/domain you expect users to use a hundred times a day.

------
BrandoElFollito
I get a On2 page which mentions duckduckgo (the competitor search). This is
from France at least.

------
davewasthere
They could not be evil and redirect it to duckduckgo.

