Google owns Duck.com, but it'll give rival DuckDuckGo a shoutout anyhow
Google owns Duck.com, which has been driving rival search engine DuckDuckGo up the wall for over six years. Because when you type "duck.com" into a web browser, you get Google.com. Doesn't make a lot of sense, yes?
But after a new round of complaints this Friday, Google has relented. Google comms VP Rob Shilkin just
quackedtweeted that a new landing page will give people an opportunity to click from Duck.com straight through to DuckDuckGo. Or to the Wikipedia page for ducks, because that's only fair.
From on2.com:
Please note that On2 was previously called the Duck Corporation. So if you typed Duck.com, you are redirected to On2.com:
Related: DuckDuckGo Is Google's Tiniest Fiercest Competitor
Related Stories
Papas Fritas writes:
"There's an interesting read today by John Paul Titlow at FastCoLabs about DuckDuckGo, a search engine launched in 2008 that is now doing 4 million search queries per day and growing 200-500% annually. DuckDuckGo's secret weapon is hardcore privacy. When you do a search from DuckDuckGo's website or one of its mobile apps, it doesn't know who you are. There are no user accounts. Your IP address isn't logged by default. The site doesn't use search cookies to keep track of what you do over time or where else you go online.
'If you look at the logs of people's search sessions, they're the most personal thing on the Internet,' says founder Gabriel Weinberg. 'Unlike Facebook, where you choose what to post, with search you're typing in medical and financial problems and all sorts of other things. You're not thinking about the privacy implications of your search history.' DuckDuckGo's no-holds-barred approach to privacy gives the search engine a unique selling point as Google gobbles up more private user data. 'It was extreme at the time,' says Weinberg. 'And it still may be considered extreme by some people, but I think it's becoming less extreme nowadays. In the last year, it's become obvious why people don't want to be tracked.'"
Duck.com now points to DuckDuckGo, not Google
Non-tracking search engine, DuckDuckGo, is now a little easier to find online after the company acquired the premium generic domain name duck.com — thereby shaving a few letters off its usual URL. This means browsing to duck.com now automatically redirects to DuckDuckGo.com.
The twist in this tale is that duck.com's prior owner was Google. And DDG had accused the search giant of anti-competitive behavior — by pointing duck.com to its own search engine, Google.com, and thus "consistently" confusing DDG users (duck.co having long pointed to the DDG community page.)...
[...] [Calls] for antitrust scrutiny of tech giants have been rising in the US. And Google's dominant position in Internet search and smartphone platforms, along with its pincer grip (along with Facebook) on the online ad market, position it for some special attention on that front. So the company quietly passing off duck.com now — after using it to redirect to Google.com for close to a decade — to a pro-privacy search rival smacks of concern over competition optics, at the very least.
Also at Gizmodo.
Previously: Google Throws DuckDuckGo a Bone, Adds Redirect on duck.com Landing Page
(Score: 2) by Revek on Sunday July 22 2018, @06:14PM (7 children)
I use it when google doesn't give me what I need. Often duckduckgo has links google is missing. So far I haven't been desperate enough to use bing.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 5, Informative) by vux984 on Sunday July 22 2018, @06:49PM (6 children)
I default to duckduckgo. I use google when it doesn't find what i want. I rarely use bing. And I use the 'bang' notation of duckduckgo to trivially search alternate sources.
Perhaps ironically, in the process of writing this reply, I realized I often use bangs right from the firefox address bar, for dictionarys, wikis, etc.. (which defaults to to duckduckgo), and when searching for images ill often do "!gi something" to search google images... not because i specifically want google images, i just want images... but i didnt know how to search duckduckgo images via a bang...
Sometimes its odd where the gaps are in ones knowledge and how long they persist. TIL:
dgi! something
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:42PM (4 children)
I searched for bang images ... I did not anticipate the results. :-/
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 23 2018, @12:07AM (2 children)
Interesting. Apparently Duckduckgo ranks porn sites higher than does Google (unless Google just filters them out).
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday July 23 2018, @03:52PM (1 child)
For the past five and a half years, Google Images has automatically turned on SafeSearch unless it thinks your keywords are strongly associated with erotic images. Does it provide an option to turn off SafeSearch?
Sources: "Google Updates SafeSearch Filter In Image Search" by Barry Schwartz [searchengineland.com]; "Google tweaks image search to make porn harder to find" by Casey Newton [cnet.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 23 2018, @04:50PM
I don't know, I've never checked.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 23 2018, @05:39PM
I searched for bang images
What? is that similar to Googling something?
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday July 22 2018, @10:37PM
It's the default search engine in SeaMonkey and using it means the SeaMonkey Foundation gets a bit of money, which they need to keep up with the changes that Mozilla makes. For most stuff it works well and as you say, it is easy to add a !g or whatever to search an alternate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @06:56PM (4 children)
Why would you type duck.com if you don't want it? Don't understand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:30PM
The users are confused, and did this person use a link shortener that is longer than the link?
https://www.cnet.com/news/today-i-learned-duck-com-redirects-to-google-much-to-duckduckgos-annoyance/ [cnet.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:41PM (2 children)
Why would you type duck.com if you don't want it? Don't understand.
More importantly, why do I get Google if I want ducks?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:04PM
Maybe ducks are a part of Google's bio-surveillance system…
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:19PM
More importantly, why do I get Google if I want ducks?
Because they're a fowl company, that's why.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:17PM
Fuck DDG. It’s not anti competitive. They own the domain, you don’t, wankers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:30PM (1 child)
Was there some specific reason they used, and only used tweeter to announce this? Perhaps they should get their own web site or something...
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:17PM
It's the new age press conference where everyone sits home.
I know. I hate it too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:35PM
I want duck.scam, but they won't let me have it!
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:38PM (12 children)
If DDG visitors fail to realize "duck.com" and "duckduckgo.com" really, REALLY aren't the same URL, then I have 1 million Nigerian dollars to give them through paybuddy.com. Seriously, it's not like there's a one-letter difference between the two...
I fail to see why DDG feels concerned about stupid people who can't be bothered to type the correct address.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:44PM (5 children)
Removing "stupid people" from your customer base can leave you with very few customers.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:55PM
Or fewer problems. If I was DDG, I really wouldn't want doofuses who can't tell the difference between two totally different URLs patronizing my site. I worked first line support long enough to know that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:19PM (3 children)
Are you saying DDG users are stupid?
(Score: 4, Informative) by unauthorized on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:39PM (2 children)
No, he is saying that stupid people make most of the population (which is obviously an oxymoron since obviously that cannot be true by definition) and getting rid of them is economically disadvantageous if your revenue model predicates on having a large consumer base to be successful.
The smart people run ad blockers so DDG doesn't even earn anything from them, unlike Google who can at least do some first party tracking on you even if you block ads and third party trackers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by dry on Sunday July 22 2018, @10:41PM
DDG just has a couple of one line ads (clearly marked) at the top of the search results. Not much for an ad blocker to block and at least I don't mind them.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @05:32AM
By what definition? There is no inherent reason that most of the population can't be considered stupid; it depends on the standard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:48PM
I like your thinking and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SpockLogic on Sunday July 22 2018, @09:30PM
Reading this thread is proof positive he was correct.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 23 2018, @12:38AM
Busy, in a hurry, and with other things on your mind, like the subject you happen to be searching for, you may not type out the URL that you meant to type. So - you expect to land on DDG's search page, but instead, you land on Google.
It's a concern, because Google is happy to capitalize on silly, simple mistakes. It's part of their business model.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Monday July 23 2018, @04:07AM (2 children)
If DDG was simply annoyed that's pretty reasonable -- to be annoyed. I would be annoyed too if I were them.
And to be fair, this does fit in the realm of a trademark violation.
After all, if DDG owned owned goog.com and directed it to duckduckgo.com; google would be all over them; and right fully so.
So likewise google owning duck and directing it to google search is a bit sketchy. Duck is obviously a much weaker mark, since its a common english language word with lots of other meanings and uses... but using 'duck' in connection with internet search... sounds like a trademark argument is at least plausible.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:44AM (1 child)
I'm not sure you want to follow the "trademark violation" line of thought; the lineage of the duck.com is far older than DuckDuckGo, and Google bought On2 Technologies/Duck Corporation only a year or so after DuckDuckGo was founded, so Google arguably has a much stronger claim on the duck.com domain, to say nothing of the fact that duck.com is generic enough that DuckDuckGo has no better claim to it than PetSmart does.
Furthermore, Google never branded itself as duck.com; it just owned the domain and redirected it to their main page, which is standard practice for domain ownership. If hypothetically this issue were taken to court, DuckDuckGo would certainly lose, if the case wasn't dropped outright.
> After all, if DDG owned owned goog.com and directed it to duckduckgo.com; google would be all over them; and right fully so.
That would only be a problem if DDG also branded themselves as goog.com, and it's not really a fair comparison, since Google could make an offer for the domain that DDG couldn't refuse.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Friday July 27 2018, @09:29PM
"Furthermore, Google never branded itself as duck.com; it just owned the domain and redirected it to their main page, which is standard practice for domain ownership."
Right. If I as PepsiCo just 'owned' the 'cokeisit' domain and redirected it to my main page, that would be grounds for a trademark suit.
"If hypothetically this issue were taken to court, DuckDuckGo would certainly lose, if the case wasn't dropped outright."
To me the only question is that 'duck' is quite generic, and perhaps not close enough to 'duckduckgo'; and 'duck' isn't especially strongly associated with duckduckgo.
Like if cocacola picked up the "fido" domain and redirected it to sprite. Would pepsico(7up) be able to argue that it's infringement on their trademarked fido dido character. Its a similar case, the trademark is fido dido, not just fido, and fido by itself is quite generic and associated with a cellphone network, and is even a generic term for dog, etc. But ultimatety I think a court would probalby side with pepsi on this, because coke using 'fido' to promote sprite is pretty sketchy... even if Coke aquired the fido brand/domain in relation to a bottle cap manufacturer or something. If it still went to to a bottle cap manufacturing division that would be ok, but if they folded it down, and redirected it to sprite products... that's not ok.
Likewise, google acquiring and owning duck is perfectly innocent, but pointint it at the google search engine,... that's a bit dodgy. Maybe not dodgy enough for ddg to prevail in court, but dodgy enough that it looks sketchy even if its deemed not illegal.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:11PM (3 children)
Apparently some people find ddg.gg too hard to type?
I thought DuckDuckGo users weren't supposed to be idiots?
I guess they're idiots after all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday July 22 2018, @10:03PM (2 children)
Idiots are a growth market.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:16PM (1 child)
No we're not.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:28PM
This documentary [imdb.com] told me otherwise.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by datapharmer on Monday July 23 2018, @04:02PM
I noticed you still can't set duckduckgo as your search provider in chrome on mobile devices still, so until that can be manually configured I'd still call it monopolistic practices.