They can be fun, but I wish we had actual oversight and regulations to protect us so that we didn't have to think about what kinds of shadowy things companies might be doing with our data.

If someone is worried about DDG, I can't blame them. They have every reason to worry, because we have no protections. Personally, while I sadly can't discount the possibility, I'm pretty sure DDG isn't run by google or the NSA, and they've been my search engine of choice for a very long time.