Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

Re:Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway by gtsteve on Thursday January 17, 2019 @01:05PM (#18932951)

I used DDG for a while and I found amusingly I almost missed Google tracking me. I'd search for a restaurant to find opening times or address and the first result would be a restaurant of the same name but in a different city or different country. Google always seems to know where I am. I'm sure that's just some clever algorithms or balance of probabilities or something based on their profile of me. I don't like that idea but at the same time I can't say it's not useful.

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Re:Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway by kelnos on Thursday January 17, 2019 @04:12PM (#18934682)

I'm actually a little surprised that DDG doesn't at least do IP geolocation to provide more locally-relevant results. I'd hardly consider that "tracking" or any kind of privacy invasion, since it's so trivial to correlate an IP with a location, and they don't need to store any data about visitors to do this.

(Yes, I know, geo IP databases aren't perfect, and people using VPNs will get incorrect results. But for most people, this isn't an issue.)

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Re:Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway by tagawa on Thursday January 17, 2019 @04:35PM (#18934868)

We do use IP geolocation for local searches, so it sounds like our triggering is not detecting the context correctly. Would you mind sharing the search query please (if you’re comfortable), so I can take a look?

As an example, something like “pizza near me” should work: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pizza+near+me

In terms of protecting privacy, you’re right, we don’t need to store the IP address (or any personal data), so we don’t. There’s more detail about how we do anonymous local searches here: https://duck.co/help/privacy/anonymous-localized-results

Disclaimer: DuckDuckGo staff.

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Re:Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway by avinium on Thursday January 17, 2019 @06:23PM (#18935631)

FWIW, I do recall DDG regularly giving me results for Melbourne, Florida (when I actually want Melbourne, Australia).

E.g. if I search for <a href='https://duckduckgo.com/?q=melbourne+restaurant&t=ffab&atb=v1... Restaurant"</a>, the first result is FL.

"Melbourne Indian Restaurant" is a bit better, but half of the front page results are still FL.

"Melbourne weather" always used to return FL, but that looks like its been fixed.

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Re:Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway by aembleton on Thursday January 17, 2019 @07:19PM (#18935939)

Interesting, where are you searching from?

This is what I see when searching from the UK: https://i.imgur.com/XIxo4Jx.png

Quite clearly Melbourne, Australia. Maybe if you're in Florida it'll bias towards there.

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Re:Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway by avinium on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @06:13PM (#18984202)

Searching from Melbourne, Australia.

Screenshot here:

https://imagebin.ca/v/4UYChGqqIEQy

(The ad is geolocating correctly, but the first actual search result is "Melbourne Brevard County Florida")

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