Brave Roasts DuckDuckGo Over Bing Privacy Exception (theregister.com) 23
Brave CEO Brendan Eich took aim at rival DuckDuckGo on Wednesday by challenging the web search engine's efforts to brush off revelations that its Android, iOS, and macOS browsers gave, to a degree, Microsoft Bing and LinkedIn trackers a pass versus other trackers. The Register reports: Eich drew attention to one of DuckDuckGo's defenses for exempting Microsoft's Bing and LinkedIn domains, a condition of its search contract with Microsoft: that its browsers blocked third-party cookies anyway. "For non-search tracker blocking (e.g. in our browser), we block most third-party trackers," explained DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg last month. "Unfortunately our Microsoft search syndication agreement prevents us from doing more to Microsoft-owned properties. However, we have been continually pushing and expect to be doing more soon."
However, Eich argues this is disingenuous because DuckDuckGo also includes exceptions that allow Microsoft trackers to circumvent third-party cookie blocking via appended URL parameters. "Trackers try to get around cookie blocking by appending identifiers to URL query parameters, to ID you across sites," he explained. DuckDuckGo is aware of this, Eich said, because its browser prevents Google, Facebook, and others from appending identifiers to URLs in order to bypass third-party cookie blocking. "[DuckDuckGo] removes Google's 'gclid' and Facebook's 'fbclid'," Eich said. "Test it yourself by visiting https://example.org/?fbclid=sample in [DuckDuckGo]'s macOS browser. The 'fbclid' value is removed." "However, [DuckDuckGo] does not apply this protection to Microsoft's 'msclkid' query parameter," Eich continued. "[Microsoft's] documentation specifies that 'msclkid' exists to circumvent third-party cookie protections in browsers (including in Safari's browser engine used by DDG on Apple OSes)." Eich concluded by arguing that privacy-focused brands need to prioritize privacy. "Brave categorically does not and will not harm user privacy to satisfy partners," he said.
A spokesperson for DuckDuckGo characterized Eich's conclusion as misleading. "What Brendan seems to be referring to here is our ad clicks only, which is protected in our agreement with Microsoft as strictly non-profiling (private)," a company spokesperson told The Register in an email. "That is these ads are privacy protected and how he's framed it is ultimately misleading. Brendan, of course, kept the fact that our ads are private out and there is really nothing new here given everything has already been disclosed." In other words, allowing Bing to append its identifier to URLs enables Bing advertisers to tell whether their ad produced a click (a conversion), but not to target DuckDuckGo browser users based on behavior or identity.
DuckDuckGo's spokesperson pointed to Weinberg's attempt to address the controversy on Reddit and argued that DuckDuckGo provides very strong privacy protections. "This is talking about link tracking which no major browser protects against (see https://privacytests.org/), however we've started protecting against link tracking, and started with the primary offenders (Google and Facebook)," DuckDuckGo's spokesperson said. "To note, we are planning on expanding this to more companies, including Twitter, Microsoft, and more. We are not restricted from this and will be doing so."
However, Eich argues this is disingenuous because DuckDuckGo also includes exceptions that allow Microsoft trackers to circumvent third-party cookie blocking via appended URL parameters. "Trackers try to get around cookie blocking by appending identifiers to URL query parameters, to ID you across sites," he explained. DuckDuckGo is aware of this, Eich said, because its browser prevents Google, Facebook, and others from appending identifiers to URLs in order to bypass third-party cookie blocking. "[DuckDuckGo] removes Google's 'gclid' and Facebook's 'fbclid'," Eich said. "Test it yourself by visiting https://example.org/?fbclid=sample in [DuckDuckGo]'s macOS browser. The 'fbclid' value is removed." "However, [DuckDuckGo] does not apply this protection to Microsoft's 'msclkid' query parameter," Eich continued. "[Microsoft's] documentation specifies that 'msclkid' exists to circumvent third-party cookie protections in browsers (including in Safari's browser engine used by DDG on Apple OSes)." Eich concluded by arguing that privacy-focused brands need to prioritize privacy. "Brave categorically does not and will not harm user privacy to satisfy partners," he said.
A spokesperson for DuckDuckGo characterized Eich's conclusion as misleading. "What Brendan seems to be referring to here is our ad clicks only, which is protected in our agreement with Microsoft as strictly non-profiling (private)," a company spokesperson told The Register in an email. "That is these ads are privacy protected and how he's framed it is ultimately misleading. Brendan, of course, kept the fact that our ads are private out and there is really nothing new here given everything has already been disclosed." In other words, allowing Bing to append its identifier to URLs enables Bing advertisers to tell whether their ad produced a click (a conversion), but not to target DuckDuckGo browser users based on behavior or identity.
DuckDuckGo's spokesperson pointed to Weinberg's attempt to address the controversy on Reddit and argued that DuckDuckGo provides very strong privacy protections. "This is talking about link tracking which no major browser protects against (see https://privacytests.org/), however we've started protecting against link tracking, and started with the primary offenders (Google and Facebook)," DuckDuckGo's spokesperson said. "To note, we are planning on expanding this to more companies, including Twitter, Microsoft, and more. We are not restricted from this and will be doing so."
Re: (Score:3)
they pay you to see their ads. and they are disabled by default. you have to opt in
That's rich (Score:3)
coming from a browser maker based on Chrome...
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they looked at the actual source code and realized that all the paranoid ranting about how Chrome steals all your data is untrue.
Re: (Score:2)
whether it steals your data or not, even after Brave allegedly removed the "goo gull phone . . . home " stuff, brave *constantly* taps google servers, heavily through naked ip addresses, both ip6 and ip4. Watch it with a privacy proxy some time.
Re: That's rich (Score:2)
Not all data, obviously, but even the "cannot detect internet" is real, because we block that attempt. Why phone home to "detect internet"?
two advertisers fighting (Score:2)
Two advertisers fighting for eyeballs impresses no one and influences no one.
Brendan Eich (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
No question that guy has had some gay hookups.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
That sounds pretty much like a blatant lie.
Please link a source where he says he should decide he has the power to choose like that.
The internet would be a better place without casual fucking liars.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's ridiculous. If I vote for Biden, I'm voting for MYSELF to have the powers of the president? What an asinine assertion.
I can say stupid shit too: "If you have the name The Evil Athiest, you are a Nazi"
See? You just can't throw words together then insist they're fact.
Uh (Score:5, Informative)
Fat words, from the same company that deliberately misdirected users to a crypto affiliate URL they made profits from?
References:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/... [theverge.com]
https://twitter.com/cryptonato... [twitter.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Brave also sends out *staggering* number of hits to google.
Try running it with Little Snitch or something similar enabled.
There is an attempt to talk to a naked IP that turns out to resolve to google every couple of minutes.
No for-profit company... (Score:4, Insightful)
No for-profit company can be trusted when it comes to privacy protection. At some point, they will always be willing to trade off security for profits.
"We already agreed that you are a prostitute, now we are just arguing over price."
This does sound sucky but (Score:2)
It's kinda weirdly hard to worry about Microsoft having my data at this point. I have so few Microsoft services any more I just don't know what they can do with it.
Not defending this behaviour but my goal is to try to limit how much Google, specifically, has on me, and DDG helps with this for the moment.
Re: (Score:2)
Most people just roast Duck (Score:2)
nft
What's the best alternative? (Score:1)
DuckDuckGo used to be my go-to search engine, but as of today I'm not going back. What's the best alternative anyone knows of that isn't currently pulling these shenanigans? Even if it's a terrible search engine, that takes 10x longer to use, it'd be well-worth it.
Not sure there is one (Score:2)
Since this and other recent articles about DDG are about their browsers, not the search engine directly ... nah I can't even finish that. Even if we don't have direct reason to say their search is tainted no matter what browser, I'd like a better alternative already. Too bad such doesn't seem to exist.
Mozilla Firefox, ...oh wait. (Score:2)