DuckDuckGo and others claim you can use them without fear of the NSA watching.
In the wake of National Security Agency leaks indicating the agency snoops on data by large tech companies, especially search engines like Google, some search competitors have seen an unprecedented spike in traffic. And — so far — have sustained it.
DuckDuckGo, the oddly-named but “private” search engine, has seen its traffic numbers jump from about 1.7 million queries per day at the start of June (before NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks) to more than 3 million over the past week. In this case “private” means it does not collect or share personal information, according to the company.
DuckDuckGo’s traffic over the years. The spike on the very right-hand side is after the NSA leaks
DuckDuckGo isn’t alone. The company partners with WolframAlpha, another Google challenger that has tried to fashion a more thoughtful search engine, one that can pull from webpages and answer questions directly in the results, rather than just providing a link to a website. (Google has also started to do this)
And StartPage and its sister Ixquick, with similar business models, have also announced big jumps in traffic. “People are outraged over secret U.S. surveillance programs and they’re looking for safe, effective search alternatives. We’re excited at this growth and we welcome our newest users with open arms,” said Startpage CEO Robert Beens earlier this month.
“Huge traffic spike” is relative to the level of traffic these companies were already seeing. Compared to Google, these numbers are a rounding error. Most days the Mountain View giant likely pulls that kind of traffic in a few minutes.
But it does show that people are becoming aware of how much of their digital lives are traceable and trackable. At least some are willing to go to an off-brand site to do their surfing.
Search Engine Land, perhaps the Web’s foremost chronicler of the search industry, ran a post entitled “Duck Duck Go’s Post-PRISM Growth Actually Proves No One Cares About ‘Private’ Search,” arguing that the company would need to still treble its search volume to even start competing with AOL, which is still light years behind Google. And since privacy incidents in the past haven’t moved the needle, we shouldn’t put too much stock in this one.
But I think this thesis suffers from a few key failures in logic. If we can assume causation, obviously people care: traffic went up. It’s just that not everyone cares. As the debate about privacy from the NSA rages on, it’s become clear that a lot of people don’t mind having their online lives snooped.
Secondly, a lot of people just don’t know there’s another search engine with a privacy mission. I’ll bet you can say “Have you tried Duck Duck Go?” to 100 people outside the tech realm and 96 of them will look at you blankly or think you’re talking about a new Chinese restaurant.
Of course DuckDuckGo and the rest haven’t made Google start worrying about market share — but they are moving the needle and that is worth noting. Perhaps another round of leaks will make “private” search traffic double again. And then those users start telling their friends. And so on. The Internet has a funny way of creating trends quickly.
But — of course — the critical question that remains to be seen is whether DuckDuckGo sustains this traffic rise. The general Internet usership has a notoriously short attention span, not to mention a tendency to go with the flow.
If traffic falls off again, the Search Engine Land piece will be validated. But if traffic stays up, then there’s clearly a new band of folks out there who are saying “I care and I’m going to do something about it — regardless of Google’s bigger and better reach into the ‘net.”
Time will tell.
