
DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps - shritesh
https://spreadprivacy.com/duckduckgo-apple-mapkit-js/
======
mtmail
Some paint it as if the main reason to switch was privacy
([https://www.imore.com/duckduckgo-switches-apple-maps-
because...](https://www.imore.com/duckduckgo-switches-apple-maps-because-
privacy) "DuckDuckGo switches to Apple Maps, because privacy"), but the
previous map provider was mapbox (openstreetmap plus commercial sources) and I
doubt mapbox collected more data than Apple is now.

~~~
gowld
DDG's main marketing model is talking about how they believe Google is privacy
threat, so they'll highlight that angle in any change.

~~~
chappi42
Google _is_ a privacy threat. Completely unrelated to DDG, marketing or
believe.

One Google with thousand tentacles...

~~~
Aunche
I'm a bit uncomfortable with how much DDG's marketing is focused on trashing
their competition. They deliberately obfuscate privacy issues to strengthen
their narrative. Sure duckduckgo is a good company right now, but that's only
because they're small. I doubt they'll stay that way when they capture a
significant market share.

~~~
latexr
> Sure duckduckgo is a good company right now, but that's only because they're
> small.

 _Only_ because they are small? That seems to imply that if they ever get big,
they’ll no doubt become evil, privacy-wise. Apple proves that does not have to
be the case.

~~~
setr
Apple’s main business is hardware, and software that helps sell the hardware.
Any revenue from data is likely a seperate, minor stream; and for it to become
a significant one, likely requires significant changes in Apple’s operations.
Like any other hardware company, they don’t need google’s kind of data
collection to make money.

But DDG is primarily funded by search, and the search business is funded by
ads, which are more valuable based on targetting quality, which is improved
by... data. About the unique user, specifically. For DDG to grow while
maintaining search as it’s primary business, it’s difficult to imagine them
not eventually (or at least, being heavily incentivized to) approach/mimic
google-style of data collection — because data collection is their money
maker.

Apple is unique amongst FAANG in being non-data-reliant, _from the start_ ;
they never had strong incentives to turn to it, and took the opportunity to
stand against it, improving their primary business without any immediate loss
(they’re hit by opportunity cost for it, but otherwise).

~~~
kllrnohj
Apple collects and uses data all the time. Their marketing kind of claims they
don't, but their privacy policy is very clear that they do.

For example they continuously collect GPS position + list of WiFi APs from
iPhone users to build their crowd-source'd wifi location database: "To provide
location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and
licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the
real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. Where
available, location-based services may use GPS, Bluetooth, and your IP
Address, along with crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations, and
other technologies to determine your devices’ approximate location."

They also state: "We also use personal information to help us create, develop,
operate, deliver, and improve our products, services, content and advertising,
and for loss prevention and anti-fraud purposes."

It's quite eye opening to compare how Apple's marketing describes their
privacy policy vs. how Apple's legal describes it.

~~~
drewmol
Also, Apple sells the default search provider space on their OS to Google for
~9B/year.

So, does it really matter if Apple doesn't directly operate their advertising
business and instead outsources it?

~~~
kiriakasis
This says nothing about apple selling user data like google of facebook.

We should be more clear in distinguishing various levels of attacks to
privacy.

~~~
kllrnohj
Google doesn't sell user data either, though.

But Apple's privacy policy is very clear that they do share user data and they
do use personal information for advertisement purposes: "Apple and its
affiliates may share this personal information with each other and use it
consistent with this Privacy Policy. They may also combine it with other
information to provide and improve our products, services, content, and
advertising."

Does Apple collect less data than Google? Almost certainly, Google is crazy
good at it. But are they still collecting data and using it for targeted
advertising? According to their own privacy policy _YES_ , yes they are.
Including tracking people on their websites: "Apple’s websites, online
services, interactive applications, email messages, and advertisements may use
"cookies" and other technologies such as pixel tags and web beacons. These
technologies help us better understand user behavior, tell us which parts of
our websites people have visited, and facilitate and measure the effectiveness
of advertisements and web searches."

Seriously, just read Apple's privacy policy:
[https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-
ww/](https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/)

It really doesn't match their heavy privacy-first marketing push of late.

And for things like Siri it's hard to imagine that they aren't going to get
increasingly creepy on the data collection aspect of things. It's sort of
necessary to build out a "real" assistant. Asking things like "What time is my
flight?", which is a useful feature, requires it to know when your flight is.
Which you probably didn't manually tell it, because that's not very
assistant-y, but instead it had to crawl your emails to find it. That ends up
being creepy data collection. They could do it purely on-device, but then your
homepod can't answer the same question, which breaks the magic. Unless they
build some way for the homepod to ask all your other Apple devices. But if all
your devices form a collective network that can share data about you between
each other is it really "purely local" anymore? And what stops Apple from
joining in on that mesh network whenever they want?

------
grsmto
I wish they were explaining why they moved away from Mapbox and OSM in
general!

~~~
aphextron
>I wish they were explaining why they moved away from Mapbox and OSM in
general!

Because it sucks. Isn’t that obvious? There’s no point in having a feature
that nobody uses. I switched to DDG a few months ago and this has always been
the one weakness. This is really good news IMO. Apple maps has come a long
long way since launch, and their data is about on par with Google at this
point.

You can argue all day that of course it’s still a commercial company. But I’d
rather compromise and hitch my wagon to the folks that are outwardly
explicitly drawing out their commitment to privacy, whose incentives I
understand and trust.

~~~
t0astbread
You're forgetting one detail that I think should be emphasized here: OSM is
about free knowledge (as in freedom). You can use, modify and share OSM data
however you want. Apple on the other hand is hoarding its information. You can
only access it through their products in the ways they intended. They control
everything (as always).

I do believe it when Apple says they're respecting their users' privacy, just
like I believe it when DDG says that. But I am disappointed when I see how
these companies neglect freedom and how so few of their users care about it.

~~~
Brakenshire
It’s disappointing that DDG isn’t supporting an open infrastructure, but when
you think about it their offering is in fact a closed infrastructure similar
in principle to Apple’s. It is a closed product, but which promises to protect
your privacy. That has value when choosing to use a service in the short term,
but it’s not something to build on or to rely on in the long term, after all
both companies could make any pivot they want if their incentives change in
future. A better model would be contributing to a search engine which is open
source, that cannot pivot without being forked.

~~~
t0astbread
Agreed, even though it's extremely unlikely companies like Apple or DuckDuckGo
will pivot.

Another big argument for supporting free software solutions is to do it for
the people who want/need freedom (like whistleblowers or activists).

------
cygned
When DuckDuckGo is set to a dark theme, the map is also in dark mode! To me,
that is an incredible valuable feature.

Edit: which is a fallback to Mapbox, no Apple Maps feature.

~~~
master-litty
We can send people to the moon but we can barely get dark mode right :)

~~~
njarboe
We can't currently send people to the moon, unfortunately. SpaceX is working
on creating that capability in the next decade or so though and with there
track record it might even happen.

~~~
mythz
Yeah the last person we sent to the moon was in 1972, so long ago that Eugene
Cernan has since died at 82 years old.

~~~
est31
Is there an updated version of this xkcd somewhere?
[https://xkcd.com/893/](https://xkcd.com/893/)

~~~
jedberg
No, but there are four left, so we're tracking just above the 5th percentile
line.

~~~
saagarjha
I think I remember hearing something about the Apollo astronauts having
higher-than-average rates of cardiovascular disease as a result of the
increased radiation in space.

~~~
garmaine
The sample size is definitely not large enough to make such a broad
generalization.

~~~
code_duck
I would imagine that there are more medical details than this to the story.

------
godelski
I have to say I'm pretty upset about this.

Not over privacy stuff (I don't trust Apple that much either), but because
Apple maps just sucks. Unless things changed within the last 4 months, Apple
Maps couldn't accurately navigate me from Custer State Park to Mt. Rushmore
(which really isn't far).

~~~
elicash
Have you previously used OpenStreetMap? I'd be interested in hearing from
those who have. I can say as a DDG user that presentation-wise I disliked what
DDG was using before -- but from a direction-accuracy perspective I simply
have no idea and would love to hear from others.

~~~
scrooched_moose
It's either great or useless, 100% dependent on your location.

Maybe 40% of my city is missing (top-20 in the US) including absolutely
everything in my neighborhood other than a couple parks and churches. It gets
my address to the correct block (between X and Y Aves) but that's it. Some
small towns around me barely exist, others are absolutely complete.

You'll probably do ok in SF/NYC/LA/Chicago etc, but it gets really spotty
beyond that.

~~~
sabas_ge
Link the area, someone will add something if it comes to this thread :)

------
lukeqsee
If any of you are looking for a company (that is not Apple) that provides map
tiles while respecting your customer's privacy, my company (link in profile)
does not keep logs beyond debugging necessity and has plans to further improve
our privacy profile. We also can make provision for proxy servers in the
interest of privacy, if that is helpful for your use case.

(We currently use Analytics on our homepage, but have plans to replace that on
our next iteration.)

~~~
spurgu
Replace it with what if I may ask?

~~~
lukeqsee
Hey spurgu, that's yet to be decided. :)

We're investigating some of the self-hosted options or our own log-based
metrics (think ElasticSearch + Kibana). We're trying to avoid third-parties,
if at all possible.

~~~
CobrastanJorji
What would your analytics stack store if you plan to keep no logs other than
those that are necessary for debugging?

~~~
lukeqsee
The analytics I'm referring to would be for our marketing page (and only our
marketing page). The logs are for our services themselves.

It may seem like splitting hairs, but I believe it's entirely reasonable to
collect useful data on the marketing site vs collecting data via the services
our customers pay for (and are used primarily by those who are not our direct
customers).

There's also a difference between aggregated data (e.g., number of page hits /
avg time spent on page) and PII (e.g., IP addresses, browser fingerprinting).

------
latexr
So DDG will now use Apple’s data to find places? Please don’t. It should be
the other way around.

Not even a month ago I made a search for a famous place in Lisbon (you know,
big metropolitan area, capital of Portugal, 11th-most populous urban area in
the European Union) and Apple Maps didn’t even know it existed. Made the
search in DDG and it found it, from where I had to copy the address and
manually search for it in Maps.

Or I could’ve used Google Maps in one try, but I genuinely want DDG and Apple
Maps to succeed so I keep trying. But please do use the best data of both,
don’t replace one with the other.

~~~
adtac
>best data of both

Isn't that basically just Google Maps? I thought Apple Maps' data was just a
subset of Google Maps'.

What does Apple Maps do better? Genuinely curious.

~~~
latexr
Yes, Google Maps is superior in my region, but as I mentioned, I’d rather
support Apple and DDG. I do so for their stances on privacy, but also because
usability-wise I do prefer Apple Maps.

> I thought Apple Maps' data was just a subset of Google Maps'

They must be different datasets; I doubt Google would want to give Apple any
data, or data Apple would take it. I will mention that once I have found one
place in Apple Maps that was not in Google Maps. It was a small hostel in
Europe.

~~~
briandear
> I thought Apple Maps' data was just a subset of Google Maps

That hasn't ever been true with Apple Maps (to my knowledge, but absolutely
not true now.)

Here's a bit on Apple Maps's current situation:

[https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/apple-is-rebuilding-
maps-f...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/apple-is-rebuilding-maps-from-
the-ground-up/)

------
t0astbread
It's a shame to see that DuckDuckGo and many other such companies (yes, also
Apple) jump on every "privacy" marketing opportunity they get but largely
ignore related user rights such as freedom of information and free software.

Actions like this, the fact that DDGs core components are still proprietary
and the freezing of DuckDuckHack just kinda make me think DDG sometimes cares
more about the PR than its users.

Don't get me wrong I do think DDG does a good job at providing a good search
engine service that respects its users' privacy. It just bothers me that
(almost) no one around here seems to care about freedom.

It's a similar thing with Apple, with the exception that Apple actively goes
against even the most basic freedoms by forbidding sideloading (if that's
still happening), forbidding the GPL on the App Store and being in control of
the whole stack - from hardware to software - on almost every platform they
have, amongst others.

I'm not saying you _need_ to love freedom but it's a good thing to have, so
why not propagate it alongside with privacy? And if you don't do it for
yourself, do it for those who care about their freedom.

~~~
briandear
How is free software a right? I'm not dismissing the value of free software,
but considering it a right? If free software is a right, that diminishes the
what "right" actually means. Freedom of speech is a right. The ability to
defend oneself is a right. Privacy is a right. But free software? How does the
map provider of DDG have any effect on a person's ability to use, create, or
distribute free software?

~~~
t0astbread
I believe it is a user's right to know and verify what a specific piece of
software does to his data and machine and adjust that behaviour if needed. For
that, they need access to the source code.

I believe it is a user's right to share the software and configuration they
use to help out their neighbour and for that they need to be able to share
copies of the software.

Lastly, I obviously believe it is a user's right to run the software wherever
they want.

So yeah, free software is a right in my opinion, like freedom of information
and free speech. Unfortunately, not many companies care about it (yet).

You're also right in the point that DDG not setting OSM as the default map
provider won't actually hurt OSM, really. But it does piss me off a bit when a
company always talks about how "privacy friendly" and "open source" they are
yet they completely dismiss the (related) freedom aspect. Because "privacy"
and "open source" are just the buzzwords the media is talking about.

Does DDG not know about freedom? Does DDG not care about freedom? Why? I know
they probably have a good reason for that and good intent in what they're
doing but without having an answer to these questions, it just looks like
they're grabbing the low hanging fruit sometimes.

------
cageface
I’m a bit concerned about how much data Google has on me and I do think Apple
is genuinely more concerned about user privacy. But what’s the difference in
practical terms really?

Google uses my data to target ads at me but doesn’t actually give any of my
data to its ad-buying customers. Apple doesn’t do this but is obliged to turn
over my iCloud data to the government with a subpoena.

Since this is really the scenario we should be most concerned about and since
all tech companies are required to comply with the law it seems to me that the
only way to have any meaningful online privacy is to not use cloud services
from any vendor.

~~~
rgovostes
> Apple ... is obliged to turn over my iCloud data to the government with a
> subpoena.

Apple must of course comply with a subpoena, but it can only hand over data it
holds the keys to. The iOS Security whitepaper[1] goes into some details. Any
encryption keys that are stored in iCloud Keychain "share[] the security
characteristics of iCloud Keychain—the keys are available only on the user’s
trusted devices, and not to Apple or any third party." This is used for some,
but not all, categories of iCloud data today—iMessage transcripts, for
instance, are safe only if you do not use iCloud Backup.

1:
[https://www.apple.com/business/site/docs/iOS_Security_Guide....](https://www.apple.com/business/site/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf)

Your post makes it sound like Google targeting ads to you and Apple complying
with legal data requests happen with the same frequency, which is obviously
false, and definitely is a difference in practical terms for the everyday
user.

According to Apple's transparency report[2], they gave data up in 2,088
account requests in the United States in the first half of 2018.

2: [https://www.apple.com/privacy/government-information-
request...](https://www.apple.com/privacy/government-information-requests/)

~~~
cageface
I agree there are some important differences but for my own privacy I’m much
less concerned about being targeted by ads then I am about some future
administration deciding I’m a person of interest for some reason and
subpoenaing my entire online life. In that respect there doesn’t seem to be a
huge difference between the two.

I deleted my Facebook account because Facebook actually has sold user data to
third parties.

------
soperj
Not in the US - so realize that not everyone experiences this - but I've never
had a mapping software be so terrible as Apple maps, led me completely out of
the way and over a toll bridge that I didn't need to go over. Trip was over an
hour longer than it needed to be. I'll definitely still be using !maps to get
google maps on duckduckgo.

~~~
reaperducer
It's regional.

For a long time (in internet time), Apple Maps were clearly inferior to Google
Maps.

These days, it's more nuanced. In some geographies they have parity. In a
select few, Apple is ahead. For most, though, Google is better.

For speed and privacy reasons, I check Apple Maps first. If I don't find what
I'm looking for, then I go to Google Maps and follow up by force-quitting
Google Maps when I'm done.

~~~
clairity
where do you think apple maps is better than google?

google maps is the only google service i still use on a regular basis because
it's clearly better than apple maps for me (california mostly). apple maps is
ok for simple use cases like finding a known business, but an ambiguous search
on google maps is almost always better, as is their routing.

i'd love to find a better mapping service for these more complicated use cases
so i can avoid google altogether.

~~~
s1mon
In the SF Bay area, they are generally on par depending on what features or
points of interest you want to find. Some locales are shockingly different.
Shenzhen China is much much better on Apple (Google and Bing show roads in the
river - completely misaligned) but Shanghai is almost useless on Apple, but
very detailed on Google (assuming you can even get to Google in China).

------
andrethegiant
I could see a future where DDG gets acquired by Apple.

~~~
mtmail
Separate discussion from last week, most argue against it
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18816748](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18816748)

~~~
devereaux
I'd argue for it. Apple is missing a search engine, has deep-enough pockets
and resources to build its own engine if DDG API contracts were stopped, and
is favored by people who value their privacy.

~~~
bunderbunder
Apple is missing a search engine. That doesn't imply that Apple needs a search
engine, nor does it imply that acquiring one would be the most profitable
thing they could be doing with their available resources.

Arguably, a key part of Apple's success is that they _don 't_ behave like
Microsoft.

~~~
partiallypro
DDG doesn't even -really- have a search engine, they are using Bing's API. So
the acquisition wouldn't even make sense.

~~~
JohnFen
DDG uses Bing as well as a bunch of other sources, including their own
crawlers. Portraying it as a sort of "Bing in disguise" is incorrect.

~~~
Kiro
Their own crawler is not used for organic search results. See sibling comment.

------
thinkindie
"pizza in berlin" lacks several options, and I just checked my neighbourhood.
This is why I'm still using google maps on my iphone, their search results are
far better and more accurate

~~~
Krasnol
"pizza in frankfurt am main" is terrible.

Scrolling with shift (!?) doesn't work at all in my FF.

I can't change the search term on the map page...

The satellite view doesn't have street names (????!)

Edit: the link I click is a yelp.com link. Why are we even talking about
Apples privacy here and not yelps?

What a horrible step back...

~~~
saagarjha
> The satellite view doesn't have street name

Are you sure you're not in hybrid view?

------
aembleton
To zoom in using my mouse wheel, I have to hold down shift, and then it zooms
in the opposite direction to how it works in Google Maps (Firefox 64.0 on
Ubuntu).

The behaviour works fine for the MapBox maps.

~~~
wjoe
Same experience with the zooming. Thanks for the tip on holding shift, but
it's realllly slow too.

I also can't drag the map around or click on any items on the map. Really
inferior experience so far.

Did you find a way to switch back to the Mapbox maps?

------
imandride
I can't imagine many people use the maps features in DDG. Switching over to
Apple maps isn't going to help, considering that everyone I know in New
England stops using Apple maps after about the fifth attempt. Absolutely
everyone has an iPhone yet I have no idea how Apple Maps looks like at this
point.

------
ncbrit
Scroll wheel isn't zooming the map for me.

~~~
smoser
Hold down shift while scrolling to zoom, just like Maps.app.

~~~
josteink
> just like Maps.app.

What is a maps.app?

~~~
saagarjha
The macOS Maps app.

------
amanzi
I guess DDG are angling for Apple to purchase them. Personally I would have
preferred for them to stick with OSM. Also, after a quick test, the Apple maps
load slowly and driving directions are offloaded to another provider (Bing,
Here, Google. or OSM)

------
zbruhnke
I really wish DDG would build a Google Apps competitor ... as long as gmail
dominates email and business email the privacy argument is largely irrelevant
because people will spend hours per day logged in and locked in to the Google
ecosystem

~~~
josteink
I don’t use Gmail. FastMail works nicely for me, with no google-login
required.

Don’t see why DDG (a search engine) should run an email-service, nor vica-
verse really.

~~~
spurgu
If you want to control all the world's data...

------
mrmondo
Personally - I find Apple maps (now, not at all in the early days) much better
than Google maps - except for one thing: On several occasions where I enter a
street address and if it's in a heavily populated area particularly if it's on
an intersection the pointer will be in the wrong place on the street - I've
reported these when I've encountered them and Apple has fixed each one within
24-48 hours but it's still a bit annoying when it does happen. My guessing is
that because Google farms a tremendous amount of public and private data from
Android devices and Google searches / services they are able to use their
privately held wealth of peoples information to improve street numbering
especially when new roads are added or intersections have been changed - that
combined with Google maps being 14 years old and Apple maps only being 7.
Still, a sensible move for a privacy focused system I believe.

~~~
jchw
One thing Google Maps does have that I don't think Apple Maps has is crowd
sourced edits. You can actually propose edits to Google Maps as a user. It's
especially prominent with business information, but it is even possible to
adjust road geometry.

~~~
xoa
You can do that with Apple Maps as well, I can't say "always" but for a long
time at least, though I can't speak for how fast they'll necessarily deal with
it. But if you set a marker then there will be a "Report an Issue" button down
below at the bottom of its info panel/pane. Amongst the options there is "Add
a Place" which can also be a street, and there is a free form "Other Issue"
(which you can attach a photo to as well) catch-all. I don't think Apple has
any more advanced stuff like user proposed road geometry editing, which is too
bad because it's painfully obvious where some simple algorithm has worked off
a satellite image vs it having some human attention.

But there is definitely some edit crowd sourcing, it may just suffer from a
smaller or less motivated user base. Speaking of the latter, I've never seen
Apple really try to _incentivize_ it either, whereas at least at one point
Google had a fairly fleshed out actual gamification for Google Maps where
people could sign up to be "Local Guides", earn points for constructive
actions, and get badges that could be publicly displayed. Essentially free for
Google (dunno if they ever gave anything else to top editors for PR, but they
didn't promise it) but even simple public recognition of an icon can be
surprisingly motivating for a lot of people. I don't know how active that
still is and also vaguely remember stories about editing tools getting shut
down a few years back, but at any rate Apple has never really tried anything
like that at all AFAIK. Not that as a corporate culture they've ever really
gotten gaming, period.

~~~
jchw
Good to know. Has this really been around for that long? I swear I was reading
about this as an issue for Apple Maps just recently.

~~~
xoa
We should probably quantify "long", I know it's been a few years at least
because I added a couple of businesses myself. But I guess it's already been
well over 6 years since Apple Maps' initial launch (how time flies!), and
there have been plenty of changes since then, so you could well argue even a
few years isn't that long in the scale of the thing. And the 1.0 launch sure
was rough a heck, not many such things where there has to be a public apology
given let alone from Apple. Some of their initial ideas for how it would
develop (with heavy 3rd party dev involvement for example) never really seemed
to work out, and they've become more, "traditional" I guess over time in terms
of data sources and doing the grunt work themselves (IIRC they started doing
their own sensor vans for example like in 2015/2016?). At any rate though it's
there now and has been for a bit, it's in the Mac version as well and I can
see it even in older ones.

Having said all that, I just checked some of the entries I made way back when,
which I did with full write ups, my source, photos, and in one case I was in
fact the business head of IT and provided that from my work email and a device
on our business Apple ID even. And I'm positive those were accepted and on the
map for at least 6 months while I was still there. Yet now I look and nothing,
and they definitely are still in business at the same location. That's kind of
a crappy. If Apple accepts user submissions but then blows them away from time
to time during map source fusion say it could explain some of their paucity of
data and would discourage more submissions from those few who bothered in the
first place.

------
betolink
I'm looking forward to the day that privacy and convenience are mainstream
again(if there were ever). This feature is a right step on that direction.

~~~
jethro_tell
They were using an open source map company, not google maps. By that standard,
I feel this is probably a privacy regression.

    
    
      I'm looking forward to the day when people know what they are talking about.

~~~
lukeqsee
> They were using an open source map company, not google maps. By that
> standard, I feel this is probably a privacy regression.

I'm not sure this is a fair comparison. Open source is not the same as
privacy-friendly.

Apple makes privacy a core-tenet of their product. I do not see the same
stance from Mapbox.

~~~
ChrisLoer
I work at Mapbox. Not speaking officially for the company here (for that see
[https://www.mapbox.com/privacy/](https://www.mapbox.com/privacy/)), but I can
say it's definitely an internalized norm that in order to earn trust as a
platform we need to be very careful with any user data we get. While user-
generated location data does flow into updating our map, we are aggressive
about anonymizing and aggregating that data as quickly as possible (including
stripping out data on the client side).

But I agree Apple has consistently advertised their focus on privacy and
backed it up with their actions.

~~~
lukeqsee
Hey Chris, glad to hear that is an internal focus!

I hope for the sake of the Internet that one day discussions about privacy
aren’t needed because it’s the default everywhere. Then everyone wins. :)

~~~
1zee
Except advertisers and industries propped up by that model

------
jchw
Apple Maps has seen impressive improvements in the past couple years. With
Mapbox/OSM in the mix as well, I look forward to seeing where the competition
in the maps space leads us.

Mapkit JS took me by surprise when it came out. But so far, it seems to have
been a solid decision, especially at a time when many were looking for new
solutions after Google Maps changes finally rolled out. And for the most part
it looks pretty good.

(Disclosure: I work for Google but not on Maps, opinions mine and not my
employer, etc etc. I wish I didn't have to write this so often.)

------
zelphirkalt
Eh ... What?! This thing isn't functioning at all! How did they think what
they have now with Apply maps could ever replace what they had before in terms
of functionality?! What were they thinking? Just to mention a few issues I hit
on the first attempt of using it:

\- I cannot search?! I can only search on DuckDuckGo, THEN click on the map
tab and see a SINGLE location, no similar locations or whatever. And then I
cannot in the map tab search? How ridiculous is that? Now I need to do a
completely new DuckDuckGo search, hope that it will magically find the street
or whatever I search, even if there are multiple ones in the same city. \- I
cannot look for directions from A to B?! When I click the "Directions" button
I get redirected to bing.com, which is currently blocked to a 100%. I don't
want to go to bing, I want to get DIRECTIONS, on the DuckDuckGo map tab and
not on another website. \- I cannot even ZOOM, wtf? I keep using the mouse
wheel and nothing happens! This thing is so broken.

And this is only the first visit of the map tab. How they f'ed that up, omg.

------
turdnagel
The calls to MapKit seem to be going through a proxy on DDG's servers, which
are currently (1/15/19 18:00 UTC) 403ing.

~~~
bsstoner
Sorry about that, we had a brief issue with our proxy, it should be working
properly now.

------
virusduck
One thing I notice is that there is no way to restrict search to the map area,
or to refine by "Search this Area."

------
SudoEpoch
I've been waiting on a better alternative to google for many years. I've use
DDG when I can but the quality indexes are just not there. Google was at the
pinnacle of balance just before they got rid of uncle-sam and reg exp search
options. Now every search is tailored to your previous metadata.

------
Konryan
This map doesn't work for me. Completely blank.

~~~
twoheadedboy
Same. Does image search work for you at all?

------
saagarjha
Interestingly, it seems like the Maps data that Apple is providing here is
inconsistent. In southern California, through the native apps I'm getting
high-quality maps, while DuckDuckGo is still showing me the older low-quality
ones.

------
twoheadedboy
Somewhat related but DuckDuckGo Image and Map search results have been broken
for months for me. I just get blank, broken images. Anyone else have this
problem?

Kind of defeats the purpose if I have to use google for half of my searches.

~~~
dan-robertson
Some kind of extension blocking the images/js from loading?

~~~
bwblabs
Or faking/randomizing your UA? Some sites (e.g. YT) serves other image formats
based on the UA string.

------
foxes
Why are people such fans of Ddg and not searx.me? searx is entirely open
source and you can run your own instance.

Ddg reportedly does collect some information (?), and their core is closed
source.

~~~
thekyle
I think it's probably that DDG does a better job at marketing themselves.
Whenever there is any sort of privacy scandal there always seems to be some
comment from their PR dept.

Personally, I am highly skeptical regarding DDG and find much of their
marketing to be hyperbolic (see the duck.com foolishness [0]). For me, I feel
that if I'm just going to get Bing search results and Bing ads, I might as
well just use Bing.

[0]: [https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/20/17595612/google-
antitrust...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/20/17595612/google-antitrust-eu-
duckduckgo-chrome)

------
needle0
I wasn't even aware DDG had maps at all since they never once showed up for
me. Probably because I am entering Japanese addresses, and their address
parser isn't recognizing them as such. As much as I wish to use it, much of
DDG has been and continues to be really abysmal if you're living in non-
English-speaking Asia. I really worry if they're aware and/or are bothering to
improve this.

------
edraferi
Excited to see DDG's local search improving. I once ordered take out from a
restaurant in another state based on a careless DDG search...

------
woofcat
She's not loading any tiles for me....

------
jenhsun
Caution: DuckDuckGo's Apple Maps might kill your macOS's default map (show
completely blank map) if your app has non-English language setting. If so,
open your active monitor and search "geod", kill it and run map app again. It
can return your apple map app back to normal state.

~~~
saagarjha
How so?

------
Paraesthetic
Well looks like I wont be using DDG for directions then, their directions are
going to be trash.

------
paul7986
Cool I don’t have to bang Google for directions anymore!

I started using DDG (slowly trying to remove Google as much out of my daily
life as possible) after reading about how Google ATAP tried to patent a MIT
researchers life’s work without her knowledge or consent.

------
Brakenshire
This decision to move away from open infrastructure actually clarifies
something I’ve been thinking about DDG recently. When you think about it, DDG
is actually very similar to Apple in terms of its offer to users. It is a
closed service which offers privacy as part of its marketing. That’s not to
dismiss it outright or say the offer is not useful or not sincere, both are
valuable alternatives to Google, but in the long run their promise has no
legal backing. Both could switch to a different model overnight if their
incentives shifted.

We could spend a decade evangelising for DDG, it becomes a significant
mainstream player, and then gets sold to someone with totally different
priorities. I’m happy to be corrected if I’m wrong, is there a legal barrier
to this scenario playing out?

~~~
Terretta
Business models are probably stickier than tech stacks.

~~~
Brakenshire
It’s not really a choice of one or the other, most companies that contribute
to open infrastructure also have a business model that relies on that. For
instance Red Hat, it can be bought but both the business model and the legal
backing for the tech licensing are sticky.

------
fady
A+ DDG! I have been using DDG (duck duck go) since Gabriel created it in 2008.
It’s been my default search on all my devices. When I need to route searches
through Google, I do, as Google is still king at knowing and giving you the
exact results you want, whereas DDG, gives you great results, with a different
algorithm on the type results plus the added security of what DDG is about.
They don’t track you. They don’t save your searches. I don’t use apple maps as
i use android, but I like that DDG continues to go against the grain and
choose privacy over comfort.

Lastly, I know the bulk of my searches go through DDG so I don’t have to think
about what I searched, on what devices, was it on a public net, was VPN
enabled?? etc etc.. What are you thoughts? Do you use DDG?

~~~
JohnFen
> Google is still king at knowing and giving you the exact results you want

Not for me, it's not. The quality of Google search results for me has been
falling for years now. These days, DDG and Google are about equally good on
that score.

I suspect that it's because Google tries to tailor my search results to what
it thinks I'm looking for rather than just giving me the results I actually
asked for, and it's really, really terrible at it.

~~~
bhhaskin
Totally. I find that most of my Google searches are not relevant. It started
to go down hill once they started pushing ML on search. Google is a marketing
platform and no longer a search engine.

------
arendtio
I wish they would have done a bit more testing: With Firefox I can't change my
position by dragging (looks like an image) and with chrome, I can't zoom with
the mouse wheel...

------
NelsonMinar
Is this the first consumer web interface for Apple Maps? I guess the JS
toolkit has been around for about half a year now, but is anyone else
significant publishing web maps with it?

------
jordache
duck duck go is pretty horrible compared to google, for search results... i
wish it wasn't. Tried it, both myself and my less tech savvy wife, thought wtf
is this?

------
vkaku
Apple should launch an alternative to Google Maps on Android. I can slowly see
the transition coming.

I love Here Maps too, it's good to have alternatives to Google products.

------
rgrieselhuber
StartPage and Searx are two interesting alternatives to DDG.

------
0ld
Is there any point in talking about DDG "privacy" as long as they use yandex
(which is basically an fsb (kgb) outlet) as a search backend?

~~~
buster
As much as Google is an FBI outlet or what do you mean? Is there a point if
DDG doesn't send personal data to yandex?

I'd expect DDG to not send my IP address or browser info to yandex. Is that
not the case?

------
yeukhon
What's DDG's business model?

~~~
amanzi
To get acquired by a bigger company.

------
dcow
The experience is already better. Thank you. Now please delete Yelp (or at
least let me turn it off).

------
known
[http://wikimapia.org](http://wikimapia.org) can be a win-win to DDG

------
ac130kz
Their core is proprietary, therefore there is virtually no difference between
Google and DDG in terms of privacy

------
diorray
DDG and Apple? seems fishy

------
koolhead17
Who uses Apple Maps?

------
Ajax25
Idiots

------
babyslothzoo
Why hasn't Apple bought DuckDuckGo?

I also think the name DuckDuckGo is too long and too cumbersome, they should
consider rebranding to something simpler. Branding matters.

~~~
lucasmullens
They own duck.com now, figure it won't be long until they're rebranded as
"Duck"

------
aboutruby
Apple is probably going to buy DuckDuckGo this year

~~~
detaro
Apple can buy the same search index access DDG has (and probably would have to
re-negotiate DDGs existing contracts when taking them over) if it wants to get
into search. Although DDG has some additions on top of that, if it'd be cheap
enough those could be a reasonable deal for Apple.

I'm not sure Apple wants to get into the mess that offering a major search
engine is.

Google is paying them quite well for the opportunity to be the search engine
on Apple devices.

------
tabtab
Re: _DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps_

When you use Apple Maps to _go_ anywhere, you do have to _duck_ :-)

