
DuckDuckGo announces partnership with Yahoo - alpb
https://duck.co/help/company/yahoo-partnership
======
pwnna
I think a better link to explain is here: [https://duck.co/help/results/yahoo-
technical-implementation](https://duck.co/help/results/yahoo-technical-
implementation)

It looks like they are just querying yahoo for results and ads as a proxy and
it sounds like, through some contractual/technical limitations, they have to
make that request from a yahoo controlled domain name (duckduckgo-owned-
server.yahoo.net). However, they say they fully control the server and yahoo
does not get to touch it, as yahoo delegated DNS to them.

The change does not seem malicious and if what they say is true, then the
implementation might not be too bad. The volume of traffic they get probably
means you cannot profile an individual from Yahoo's side. However, this
potentially means that your search history is leaked to Yahoo, albeit in an
aggregate manner with other DDG users, which may have attacks that I'm not
aware of.

What I can see, however, is a lot of noscript users get startled by this
change as they will see DDG use a script from yahoo.net (actually duckduckgo-
owned-server.yahoo.net) as by default noscript does not show the full domain.

~~~
piyush_soni
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?

~~~
volatilitish
Isn't that basically the MO of every startup?

* 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.

~~~
tagawa
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](https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates)

Disclaimer: DDG staff

~~~
volatilitish
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.

~~~
dpcx
Does it matter if it's following the "usual startup route"? If it's
profitable, and it hasn't compromised on it's values, then it's winning.

~~~
volatilitish
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.

------
SwellJoe
I've been astounded at how rare it is for a search API to offer date
information. I talked to Gabriel about the problem many moons ago, and even
with their significantly greater clout (than a random dude working on a tiny
project that uses search engine APIs), and despite asking for it, they
couldn't get that info from their partners. So, it's good to see they finally
made it happen with Yahoo.

But, I thought the Yahoo BOSS search API was gone, and the only way to use
Yahoo search was basically just a black box sort of deal (i.e., you pass them
the query and they hand you results, which you display as yahoo sent them).
I'm not sure I understand what DDG is doing, and when you'd hit those Yahoo
results. It's especially convoluted since Yahoo gets its results from Bing,
right?

------
ra1n85
Always loved DuckDuckgo - kinda came across as a search engine that didn't
seek to takeover the world, and only sought to fill a (necessary) niche. That
seems more genuine than "don't be evil".

~~~
Zikes
Google originally won everyone over with superior results, the rest of it came
pretty organically.

The underdog is always everyone's favorite until they somehow wind up on top.

~~~
reitanqild
> The underdog is always everyone's favorite until they somehow wind up on
> top.

Google was everyone's favorite for a while even after becoming the market
leader. And it seems the reasons to dislike google are pretty diverse
(although around here I mostly hear "because they forced g+ login on youtube"
or "because they killed reader". FTR my biggest annoyances with them was 1:
when they killed off Google Desktop Search, 2: the years when they insisted on
fuzzing any search until it returned millions of results )

~~~
deltaprotocol
>> although around here I mostly hear "because they forced g+ login on
youtube" or "because they killed reader"

You forgot {{insert all possible privacy concerns}}, and on that wave, total
disrespect for user choices. As a very tech savvy human I still can't dodge
all their malicious attempts to collect my data, imagine the non savvy human
fellow.

------
cpplinuxdude
Please help me understand why DuckDuckGo decided for the query to go in the
URL, as opposed to being encrypted on the client before being sent to the
server as a get or a post.

Most users probably have their browsing history switched on, and synced with
their friendly browsing software provider anyway, totally reversing any
privacy advantage a user might potentialy gain by using DuckDuckGo.

~~~
SparkyMcUnicorn
They do have an option to turn on POST instead of GET.

This is from their page on privacy (
[https://duckduckgo.com/privacy](https://duckduckgo.com/privacy) ):

> Another way to prevent search leakage is by using something called a POST
> request, which has the effect of not showing your search in your browser,
> and, as a consequence, does not send it to other sites. You can turn on POST
> requests on our settings page, but it has its own issues. POST requests
> usually break browser back buttons, and they make it impossible for you to
> easily share your search by copying and pasting it out of your Web browser's
> address bar.

------
MichaelGG
I want to use DDG. I've made it my default search engine. But the result page
is just so slow. Both in slow to load (v Google), and actual responsiveness.
It's just slightly laggy, or at least it feels like that. Google has neither
problem. I'm willing to put up with not-excellent relevancy, but the slowness
is killing me.

I'm using FF 49 64-bit on Win8. Am I anomalous or does anyone else feel this
at all?

~~~
enibundo
No slowness here.

The only downside is the quality of results.

Most of the time when searaching technical questions I get better results on
google compared to ddg.

It looks like ddg doesn't like stackoverflow.

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
Agreed: underranking SO is my biggest issue with DDG.

~~~
q-base
Which of course depending on their ranking implementation seems kinda odd, as
you could expect a big part of the users of SO also to be the ones using DDG.
But again if it categorically undervalues results from there, then those users
will of course find alternatives.

------
rmason
I do sure hope that any agreement DDG has made with Yahoo doesn't get
cancelled by their eventual new owner.

But if Dan Gilbert ends up being the buyer my guess is that he'd actually like
Gabriel Weinberg enough to continue. Not so much with Verizon or the private
equity firms bidding.

------
frik
DDG is a meta search engine that uses mainly Yahoo and/or Yandex (depending on
the region).

Yahoo had turned their Yahoo BOSSS API (acccess to Bing search engine) from
free to pay-for-each-1000-queries and completely discontinued the API earlier
this year. So now we learn DDG gets access, but no one else of the smaller
fishes (other meta search engines, etc).

~~~
yitchelle
For the layman like me: if I do a search for "cute cats", does the results
comes from Bing after it has been through Yahoo before DDG shows it? Who does
the actual searching?

------
piplgobde
Yeah been seeing the Yahoo logo on the bottom right of my DDG results, for a
couple weeks now.

Not going to be moving away because of this, we'll see if it gets even better.

~~~
greglindahl
I'm still getting Yandex, guess Gabe's algo suspects I'm not much of an ad
clicker :-)

~~~
piplgobde
Which is funny since I have changed my hosts file and use uBlock Origin and
extensions like that for anything that might have missed.

------
appleflaxen
I don't have any technical concerns about this, because I trust DDG based on
their actions to date.

But TBH it does tarnish their brand a bit, in my eyes, and I don't fully
understand why this is a big enough improvement to dilute the brand at all.

------
b34r
Is this actual Yahoo tech or Bing result enrichment by way of Yahoo?

~~~
yeukhon
I heard Yahoo has a search team but I don't know exactly if they were just
enhancing on top of Bing really.

------
dredmorbius
For those who'd been missing date-restricted searches, DDG now offers these,
thanks to the Yahoo partnership.

It's not as flexible as Google's date-ranged searches, in which specific start
and end dates can be specified, but you now _can_ restrict searches to the
past day, week, month, or year. I'd noticed this (and submitted to HN) about a
month back.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11819435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11819435)

(The control's moved to the Hamburger Menu since.)

(I'm hoping more controls come into effect.)

------
shmerl
Great! Missing date filtering was a major downside.

~~~
HoopleHead
I switched to using StartPage[1] a while back, because I got sick of waiting
for DDG to add date-filtering. I've kind of got used to StartPage now, so not
sure if I'll switch back... although some of DDG's 'bangs' were handy.

[1][https://startpage.com](https://startpage.com)

------
elcapitan
DuckDuckGo should wait a little longer and then buy Yahoo.

------
chflags
Why do they say "duckduckgo-owned"?

It appears they are using AWS. Who really owns the server?

    
    
       echo 50.18.192.251 duckduckgo.com >> /etc/hosts
    

Avoids needless DNS lookups; saves DNS logs from your footprints.

~~~
jlgaddis
... and will break as soon as that instance is shut down.

~~~
chflags
That's why I'd prefer a search engine that was not using AWS, or Yahoo. Too
many needless dependencies.

Out of curiousity I'm starting a counter today. Will post something when this
IP addr fails. Feel free to take a guess how long it will be used by DDG.

And when it does change, if ever, I have a one line shell script that uses ed
to remove entries from files, so all it takes to add a new IP addr to HOSTS is
typing

    
    
        ed-script-name domain-name /etc/hosts
        echo aa.bb.cc.dd domain-name >> /etc/hosts
    

In my opinion, the usefulness of a website is inversely proportional to the
frequency with which it changes IP addresses.

For example, the IP address for HN rarely changes.

But feel free to keep looking it up in DNS every day. Just in case.

If there are problems with DNS, most users will probably not remember the IP
address for HN and will not be able to read the stories.

Meanwhile, the user that stores IP addresses as a backup will have no such
problems.

------
pbreit
"We've worked closely with Yahoo to implement these new features in accordance
with contractual terms and our privacy policy. To be as transparent as
possible, we've written up details on the technical implementation."

As a search user, I couldn't care less about this stuff. I don't think it's
even possible to build a good search engine "in accordance with contractual
terms".

------
Sami_Lehtinen
Yet another Privacy Oriented Search Engine: Oscobo
[https://oscobo.co.uk](https://oscobo.co.uk)

~~~
justsearchin
Oscobo is a Yahoo partner. It is Motherpipe.com, so similar setup as DDG, but
without the "owned" server in between.

------
basicplus2
i noticed a slow down sometime ago... did Duckduckgo slow down when/because
yahoo got involved?

------
rodionos
If you look at their search statistics, they've been growing slower this year.

[https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/e8635882/7/](https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/e8635882/7/)

------
AndrewWarner
Does this mean that Yahoo results appear in DDG?

Will DDG power Yahoo search in any way?

~~~
frank_jaeger
From the "technical implementation" article they link to

>When you do a search on DuckDuckGo, depending on the particular search, we
will make a call to Yahoo for links, ads and other content.

------
akerro
Motto of DDG was "Still better than Yahoo" ; )

------
youdontknowtho
That's great. Anything that sees more competition in the search space is good
for the Internet.

------
mgav
In most cases I'd worry, but I think Gabriel is trustworthy and long-term
focused.

------
Ferver777
Interesting. Probably won't do a ton though for their bottom line.

------
tacos
And so it ends. The mere act of partnering with Yahoo indicates desperation
and signals poor decision making.

I'm not sure I understand HN's fascination with this site but this is not a
good sign for those who claim to use it in these never-ending threads.

~~~
beardog
How? its all proxied and the 'yahoo server' is duckduckgo owned.

------
organic_tech34
Privacy Statements are the tech equivalent of calling food organic.

You need a reputable third party to audit your practices. Or your software
needs to be open source so anyone can see what you're doing.

I'll be switching from using DDG because of this. I don't trust Yahoo, and I
barely trust DDG.

~~~
dcgoss
Ironically, your name is organic_tech34. For the record, the term "organic" is
regulated by the USDA.

~~~
mathgeek
> the term "organic" is regulated by the USDA.

I think the point the previous poster was making is that even though it's
regulated, there are so many black boxes that it's rather easy to sneak in a
violation and no one notices (whether the company is doing it or it's
accidental). Just look at how many organic product recalls happen in any given
year due to various causes.

~~~
dcgoss
Ok, that makes sense.

------
cft
Sorry could not abstain

Two turkeys do not make an eagle

------
0xmohit
For the record, this isn't really _news_.

A lot of details can be found at [https://duck.co/help/results/yahoo-
technical-implementation](https://duck.co/help/results/yahoo-technical-
implementation)

[https://duck.co/help/results/sources](https://duck.co/help/results/sources)
also states that they partner with Yahoo!, and in some regions and scenarios,
Yandex and Bing.

~~~
ausvisaissues
Different topic:

Why do they use www.duck.co as their development url and www.duckduckgo.com as
their search engine name?

The latter is just way too long to type. Especially for casual users who has
google set at their main search engine. Compare URL lengths:

duckduckgo.com 14 (10+4)

google.com 10 (6+4)

yahoo.com 9 (5+4)

yandex.ru 9 (6+3)

bing.com 8 (4+4)

baidu.cn 8 (5+3)

I really want to like duckduckgo, but the name is really not well chosen. Even
google (with a relatively long name) at least have two repeating characters.

~~~
SwellJoe
I can't remember the last time I typed in a search engine URL. I type my
queries into my browser URL field and let it do the right thing. When I want
Google, I use "!g query" (because DDG is my default, and that's how you tell
it to redirect the query to Google).

Under what circumstances do you type in the name of your preferred search
engine?

~~~
ausvisaissues
When I want to use the non-default search engine (non-default is usually ddg).
When trying a search engine for the first time. When using a public computer.

Biggest problem is on mobile. On Chrome (for iPhone), I have the following
options:

1\. Google

2\. Yahoo!

3\. Bing

I don't see any way to add a search engine not on the list.

~~~
techthroway443
> I don't see any way to add a search engine not on the list

Then that's a problem with Chrome. Using Safari on iPhone you can set DDG as
your default search engine.

------
jeemar
Wow, what are our options now?! Also, Yahoo now has information about general
searches made by DDG users even if they can't get info on a particular
individual.

------
Dr_tldr
Yahoo, the company that saves your unsent and deleted email drafts forever and
will turn them over to law enforcement even though they say that should be
impossible?

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-deleted-yahoo-emails-
le...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-deleted-yahoo-emails-led-
to-a-20-year-drug-trafficking-conviction)

Maybe Yahoo is sincere in their privacy pledge, maybe they're not, but one
thing has already been proven: they don't have a good enough grasp of how
their own servers work to make that promise.

Very disappointed in DuckDuckGo. I expect they won't be around for too much
longer, much like Yahoo.

