DuckDuckGo is a for-profit (so no, they don't accept donations) and very profitable since 2014. They sell non-tracking ads and affiliate links related to search queries. They also have various investors.

Most interestingly they donate every year (last round was $1M in 2021) to orgs that work to improve privacy.

DuckDuckGo refused every independent audits

DuckDuckGo android app leaks your identity and websites you visit to them [1], issue they closed with a surprising reply

Issue happened again years later [2]

DuckDuckGo got caught with their shady terms with Microsoft (bing tracker drama)

They estimate 70M-100M users [3], you don't make 100M a year with that amount of users, either Microsoft overpaid them for the tracker, or they are hiding something

It's impossible to find their detailed earning reports, so nobody can confirm their claims, and yet it's being promoted as a privacy focused search by the media all around the world, why? despite these major flaws? i don't know

So who knows what they do else?

[1] - https://github.com/duckduckgo/Android/issues/527

[2] - https://github.com/duckduckgo/Android/issues/2004

[3] - https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/16/on-a-growth-tear-duckduckg...