
What is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo? - lettergram
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-revenue-generation-model-for-DuckDuckGo/answer/Gabriel-Weinberg?share=1
======
stephengillie
> _In fact, search advertisers buy search ads by bidding on keywords, not
> people. It makes intuitive sense, too. If you search for ‘car’, you are more
> likely to respond to a car ad than something you searched for last week.

This keyword-based advertising is our primary business model._

The rest of the post is a rant about user tracking.

~~~
dpcan
I think there's a problem with this model however. When the highest bidder
wins, consumers and advertisers can lose, big.

I understand how DDG has to say this is the best and smartest way to do things
because they have to live with their promise of not creeping on their visitors
- so they can't use the same analytics that someone like Google has. It's just
marketing.

But the ads that go to the top should be the most valuable, not necessarily go
to the buyer with the deepest pockets.

I suppose you could say "car" ads cost $x per click, and then let all
advertisers rotate, but that's not helpful either. You could measure which one
gets clicked the most and have it move to the top, but that can be gamed. If
you had any way of knowing how long someone spends on the advertised websites,
or base it off of social media reviews or allow consumers with verified
accounts to rate ads, that might work better.

I don't know, I just can't trust an ad format where I know the top click just
spends the most money.

~~~
cletus
That's not how this model works. There are three general models of online
advertising:

\- CPM: you pay per impression (ie how often the ad is seen)

\- CPC: cost per click. You only pay when the user clicks.

\- CPA: you only pay when the user clicks and does something (eg buys
something)

Display advertising (putting ads on third-party websites eg AdSense) is
primarily CPM. Search advertising is primarily CPC (or at least this is how
Google operates; I assume DDG is similar).

It's important to understand the implications of this.

In a CPC model the system that selects what ads to show you is doing so to
maximize revenue. Since they only make revenue when you click a lot of effort
is spent in determining the predicted CTR (click through rate) because:

Revenue = # of impressions x pCTR

So it's not just a question of who pays the most for an ad (that's how display
advertising works largely) because a $1 CPC with 1% CTR earns more revenue
than a $10 CPC with 0.01% CTR.

This is why I have less problem with the CPC search advertising model than
pretty much any other model because your interests and the interests of the
search engine are largely aligned. You want the results that are most relevant
to you and that might be an organic search result or an ad. As long as the ads
are clearly display as such, it's fine.

Also with search there is intent. You've searched for something so there's
something you want. Who's to say an ad won't be the most relevant result?

~~~
stephengillie
CPM should be updated to CPK.

The M in CPM is the Roman numeral for 1000. It's an archaic term, and should
be replaced with the SI unit for 1000. Though coining the phrase "kilo-
impression" would be a stretch.

~~~
cletus
Technically the M in CPM is "Mille", the French word for thousand. The origin
of the term is from traditional print publishing.

~~~
efdee
100 per cent correct.

------
chiefalchemist
> "Here are a few actionable things companies can do to remain profitable
> without tracking the maximum amount of information possible on consumers:"

Can we add to his list:

> Offer a paid option such that consumers who want to pay for privacy / less
> ads / no ads can.

> Along with a paid option, companies should develop partnerships with like
> minded peers.

For example, DDG could pair with various VPN providers and the DDG paid tier
could included "free" with your VPN fee. That is, one payment, not two, two
related services.

~~~
gaius
_Offer a paid option such that consumers who want to pay for privacy / less
ads / no ads can_

The problem is that the customers with disposable income to pay to see no ads
are exactly the people that admen want to reach. So it's unlikely that any ad-
supported company will offer this. It would be as good as admitting to their
real customers that their inventory (i.e. us) was of "low quality".

~~~
chiefalchemist
If YouTube can offer a no ads model then it can't be impossible. Mind you,
Google is likely doing other trickery. But certainly there's got to be
alternatives to ad blockers, etc.

~~~
izacus
It also assumes that everyone with disposable income will pay for
subscription. That's not really true.

------
mojuba
I like DDG, but claiming that their ads are based only on keywords is just not
true. They are at least also based on location. I just tried "dishwasher" and
it brings up ads in French from local stores. But this is natural, because
without the location most ads would probably be meaningless.

The question is then, how far can you go by using the information available
only in the user's HTTP request? Can you use the user's OS and device
information? Where is the line exactly that DDG doesn't want to cross?

Edit: I just realized that the answer is probably: yes DDG can use all
available information to improve targeting, but it won't store it.

~~~
gmueckl
When you use it for ads, but don't store it, how do you prove to your
advertisers that you are keeping their contracts and showing the ads to the
right target group?

~~~
mojuba
Good question, but I think the pay-per-click model should solve it?

~~~
gmueckl
If you find enough advertisers that are willing to go for that model, I agree.

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blackhaz
I'll probably be downvoted to hell, but I have to say this. I'm Ukrainian, so
I have bias against anything related to Russian government, especially
services pretending to be improving my privacy. So, my question is, what is
DuckDuckGo's relationship to Yandex, a company fully controlled by Russian
government and having track record sharing personal information with Russian
security services?

~~~
JCSato
Are. . .you aware of some relationship between the two? I don't think I've
ever heard of them being linked.

~~~
43920
DuckDuckGo has a deal with Yandex to display search results from them on some
searches. If you search for something in Russian, you'll see a "in partnership
with Yandex" message in the corner of the search results page.

~~~
gmueckl
Can you narrow the set of search engines from which the results are pulled?

~~~
detaro
no, they don't expose the sources.

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losvedir
> _Alarmingly, Google now deploys hidden trackers on 76% of websites across
> the web to monitor your behavior_

Is this referring to Google Analytics? If so, I feel like "Google deploys"
isn't quite fair compared to "Google's tracker _is deployed_ " or something to
that effect. But in any case, the phrasing is confusing enough to me to post
here, since I want to know if it means something other than GA, which I
understand and can block with uMatrix.

~~~
piyush_soni
This is the CEO of DDG deliberately spreading FUD to innocent people on
platforms like Quora in my book. And he's a regular visitor there hijacking
many threads promoting his business. I reported his out of place promotional
answers once or twice, saying if the CEO of a company is spamming, will it not
count as a spam (as opposed to normal people)? Quora didn't remove the answer,
for some reason. This one is of course a slightly relevant answer here, but
again with his usual dose of competitor bashing and spreading FUD that is a
little out of taste for me personally.

Also, may be he's speaking it just for the sake of promotion and doesn't take
it too seriously himself, but the quality of search results can definitely be
_greatly_ improved when you know more about a person than just their search
keywords (or even their country). If he actually believes what he says on
Quora, I won't place my bet on his business doing too great in the future.

1\. The first example (what he writes in his answer) - when I type
"dishwasher" in DDG, _every_ shopping website it lists on the first page is
from USA, and I don't even live in the same _continent_. Even when I enable my
country results through the button shown on top of the page, the shopping
websites are not even the top ones in my country. When I type that in Google,
it lists not only the top e-sellers in the country, the most popular local
stores in my area as well. What will the advertisers achieve when they don't
even know which place I live in? Who will sell me that dishwasher?

2\. When I type Zoo, it's pretty damn clear I want to search a zoo in my area.
DDG's results even when country is enabled are plain stupid. Write in Google,
and it tells me exactly what I want to know.

3\. When I type 'Jaguar' in the search box, all top link results are of the
Jaguar _car_ , but all the top image results are the Jaguar _animal_. Google
is much more consistent here.

I can give tens of examples of why personalization of search results is _not
that bad an idea_ for the value it adds. Of course, there are very important
negative side effects to it, and that's why we have DDG. But I would have
respected his opinion much more had he acknowledged that personalization of
search results adds a great value, but also has other consequences, like any
balanced personal who can see both sides of a coin.

~~~
isostatic
I live in the UK and have DDG pointing at the UK. I'm currently in Kenya.

Searching for dishwasher on DDG gives Currys, John Lewis, Argos,
appliancesdirect, and ao.com. All of those are UK based, exactly what I would
expect

Searching google.co.uk gives Currys, BestBuy (which gives a choice between CA,
US, MX), Lowes (US), Home Depot Canada, Home Depot U.S.

DDG is far better

When I search for Zoo on DDG, I get IMDB about a TV series, Chester Zoo (UK's
most visited), London Zoo, and Wiki about the tv series. On Google.co.uk I get
stuff about the TV series, Nairobi national park, and then stuff about Boston
USA, Berlin, and Madrid.

DDG is far better.

~~~
piyush_soni
You have to select the country for it to show the UK results, I already wrote
that (that is a kind of personalization, isn't it?). For the Zoo, I'm not
sure, does everyone in UK search for and visit only that _most visited_ one
and not the one in their vicinity? Then we don't even have remotely same
expectations from a Search. Do people also visit the most popular "Laptop
repair store" in UK regardless of where they live? Google gives me results in
my area, starting from the nearest one - of course, provided it has sufficient
information about your City/Zip code etc. Let's not deny that it's extremely
useful in abstract (keeping aside privacy based consequences).

P.S. : Had DDG been far better, they wouldn't need those Google Bangs that
many users praising DDG keep finding themselves going back to.

------
dna_polymerase
Oh look another anonymous question on Quora about a company, answered by the
CEO of said company. And it is answered in such a direct way without any
marketing for his service at all. \s

These Q&A things on Quora are getting ridiculous. Without all the fluff that
thing would condense to one sentence: We make money by context search ads and
affiliate commission on !bang searches.

The thing that I thought made Google even better (back in the 200xs) was that
Google did no advertising for their service. People just recommended their
service because it was so useful and good. DDG can't live up to that standard
and so they have to highlight their built-in privacy whenever possible. It's
like everything they offer, they rub it in your face. It feels like they don't
care about the search problem but only about being so much more privacy-
focused than Google.

I can switch to StartPage and have Google + Privacy, with DDG it is just
privacy without any good search results.

~~~
nunobrito
Lest we not forget that DDG plainly refuses any external auditors to verify
their claims of user privacy, despite having received a large investment
recently and employing about 50 people (or more now) in full time.

In this case, DDG asks users to have "faith" that their privacy is indeed
being respected.

~~~
wslh
Not defending DDG but it is ridiculuos to ask for a company for auditing to
probe their claims. There is no legal enforcement for that. If DDG lies and
they are discovered they will loose their user base. It is enough with that.

~~~
dna_polymerase
Yes, but all we can observe for now is that we constantly send the same data
to DDG as we did send to Google and for some reason we are supposed to trust
DDG.

It isn't a too wide far-fetched that DDG could be collecting all data in
silence and once they have enough of it (or are big enough to survive losing a
part of their user base) start capitalising off of it.

I don't trust DDG any more than I do trust Google. In fact I trust Google with
their boatloads of great engineers (of which we have learned that they do have
some sense of moral and ethics) more than a small company that could easily be
forced to capitalise on their user-data because of their shallow pockets.

~~~
wslh
You can apply the same thinking to zillions of companies marketing themselves.
It is unfeasible and naive to promote auditing information. At the end you
would be harming small companies who cannot afford auditing.

------
BoorishBears
I don’t like how he presented the “creepy” line out of context.

It was about doing things that are magical enough to make users happy, and
just magical enough to not be creepy.

Almost looks like he’s accusing Eric of claiming Google wants to be as
unscrupulous in the way they operate as possible without being caught

~~~
clubm8
>Almost looks like he’s accusing Eric of claiming Google wants to be as
unscrupulous in the way they operate as possible without being caught

Eric has said in public it is official Google policy to walk right up to the
"creepy" line, so the accusation is not unwarranted given that google operates
worldwide, and not every country has the same views on privacy as Americans.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/eric-schmidt-googles-
policy-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/eric-schmidt-googles-policy-is-to-
get-right-up-to-the-creepy-line-and-not-cross-it-2010-10?op=1&IR=T)

~~~
BoorishBears
How is that article not saying exactly what OP said and what I dispute?

The context of the quote was medical implants in brains and his words were

“Our policy _on a lot of these things_ is to get up to the creepy line and not
cross it [and that would cross it]”

What he was clearly referring to is advanced tech projects, not general
policy.

It sounds like a play on the old any sufficiently advanced technology
resembling magic line, and is completely harmless...

Until you start taking it out of context and ignoring some of the words he
said.

------
__initbrian__
I started using DDG and Firefox after Chrome v69. I couldn't always find what
I needed with DDG so I use g! when the search doesn't cut it (~20% of the
time) but for the other 80% it's great. I've loved some unique features like
the stack overflow first answer integration.I also noticed a big increase in
Google advertising recently. Ads in the Gmail app and new types of ads--
shopping ads below the YouTube video above the description and movie poster
type ads on the right panel of some movie trailers. I bet their ad revenue in
the next quarter is going to increase significantly. Is there a new person in
charge or new decisions in place to serve more ads? (sorry about the Google
search heavy comment but DDG revenue generation got me thinking about Google
revenue)

------
Lurkars
I switched about two years ago and do not miss any Google stuff. I think one
very important point is persistent search: if I type in a query in my browser,
I get the exact same result as in p.e. in my moms browser. A things that is so
annoying in Google, because even an incognito browser give personalised search
result. So the experience in fast finding tech help in Google can inverse on
an non techy device. Using ddg: always same experience. A feature you don't
want to miss, if you often use other devices, like helping friends and family.

~~~
__initbrian__
I generally agree. I'd like the same search to return the same results. But I
bet there are things I'd be willing for it to be different. I can only think
of 'food near me' though

~~~
Lurkars
Of course, it wasn't meant too generally. I also don't want to get the same
results over years p.e. To summarize: I strongly prefere non personalized
results, persistence was the wrong term here. So "food near me" should give us
the same results, when we're at the same place (& nearly same time).

------
ing33k
I am getting targeted promoted tweet on Twitter for the same quora question.

------
jancsika
> Though first, if you’re not familiar with DuckDuckGo, we are an Internet
> privacy company that empowers you to seamlessly take control of your
> personal information online, without any tradeoffs.

For the record: by policy, or by design?

~~~
utopcell
By accident: Bing (their main backend) would obviously not leak personal
information to a third party site such as DDG.

