DuckDuckGo’s New Video Targets Google’s “Filter Bubble” Of Personalized Results

DuckDuckGo’s ongoing mission to challenge Google (and other search engines, but mainly Google) on privacy issues has taken another turn with the recent launch of a video that accuses Google of putting searchers in a “bubble” of personalized results. The video hits on a few of DuckDuckGo’s consistent talking points in its ongoing battle to […]

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duckduckgo-logoDuckDuckGo’s ongoing mission to challenge Google (and other search engines, but mainly Google) on privacy issues has taken another turn with the recent launch of a video that accuses Google of putting searchers in a “bubble” of personalized results.

The video hits on a few of DuckDuckGo’s consistent talking points in its ongoing battle to educate searchers on privacy issues and, more specifically, what it considers to be the benefits of using its own search engine instead of Google. Almost two years ago, DuckDuckGo launched DontTrack.us, a website that details how Google tracks its users and how DuckDuckGo doesn’t.

As TPM reported today, DuckDuckGo recently did a small study with 131 volunteers, asking them to search for three current U.S. political terms — “abortion,” “gun control” and “Obama” — and then comparing the results. The results are highlighted in DuckDuckGo’s new video.

“Filter bubble” is a term that author Eli Pariser coined in his book of the same name last year. Pariser keynoted our SMX East 2011 conference; you can read a recap of that here: SMX East Keynote: A Conversation With Eli Pariser.

DuckDuckGo’s usage is a tiny fraction of the major search engines, but it’s gaining traction. The site’s public traffic page shows that it’s currently getting about 1.3 to 1.4 million searches per day.


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About the author

Matt McGee
Contributor
Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.

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