DuckDuckGo's privacy-first reputation has been shattered after revelations that it has settled monitorings with Microsoft.
Security researcher Zack Edwards revealed this week that the DuckDuckGo mobile browser allows some Microsoft programs to bypass its crawler blockers.
While the browser blocks Facebook and Google crawlers, DuckDuckGo makes an exception for some of Microsoft's programs. Edwards found that the browser allows data to be sent to Microsoft's LinkedIn and Bing domains.
DuckDuckGo, in turn, announced that the exception is due to a search agreement with Microsoft. Specifically the CEO and founder of DuckDuckGo, Gabriel Weinberg said on Twitter:
"Regarding the exclusion of the tracking search, we exclude most third-party trackers. Unfortunately, the Microsoft Search Distribution Agreement prevents us from doing more in Microsoft-owned programs. However, we are constantly pushing and we expect to do more soon ".
That is, they are not to blame. The agreement they made with Microsoft is to blame. Very reasonable !.
The company after the uproar, has also added a note about his ban Tracker in description of its program in the App Store:
While we block all cross-site (third-party) cookies on other sites you visit, we cannot block all hidden tracking scripts on non-DuckDuckGo sites for several reasons, including: new scripts appear all the time that make them difficult to find; THE exclusion of some scripts creates a break, rendering parts or the entire page unusable. Some we cannot exclude due to contractual restrictions with Microsoft.
