DuckDuckGo: no we do not use browser fingerprinting

The well-known search service was forced to drop accusations that it uses browser fingerprinting to track its users.

This would be totally contrary to DuckDuckGo's raison d'être that he does not collect personal data from his users. So a category like this could be detrimental to the service. DuckDuckGo

For those who don't know DuckDuckGo (DDG) is a search engine just like its engines or Bing.
However, the big difference is that DuckDuckGo promises to protect your privacy. Thus, unlike its rivals, DuckDuckGo "does not collect or share personal information".

DuckDuckGo provides search results based on the keywords used, although it displays ads to pay its accounts. The company claims, however, that even the ads it displays are clearly based on the keywords users are looking for.

How did the story begin?

Cue a disaffected user at forum Whonix has discovered that DuckDuckGo uses the "Canvas DOMRect API" in the search engine. The user claims to have confirmed this using CanvasBlocker, a Firefox add-on developed by Korbinian Kapsner.

Canvas could be used for browser fingerprinting, where websites and advertisers collect identifiable information from the browser. So according to the user from DuckDuckGo "they sell data without question".

DuckDuckGo refused the browser fingerprinting, and Brian Stoner, VP of Search, replied to the forum posting, saying:

"A lot fingerprint protection take a scorched-earth approach, blocking any browser API that a malicious user could exploit.”

Ο and DDG CEO Gabe Weinberg, said told TechCrunch that this was a "false positive" result and insisted that DuckDuckGo only use getBoundingClientRect () to "determine browser size and page layout." According to Weinberg, this is the possible culprit.

Let's say that DuckDuckGo is growing in popularity every month. In January of 2017, DDG celebrated 10 billion searches since launching 2008. While 2018 only service idlers made 9 billions of searches.

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Written by giorgos

George still wonders what he's doing here ...

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