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DuckDuckGo (DDG) is an internet
search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
that emphasizes protecting searchers'
privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...
and avoiding the
filter bubble A filter bubble or ideological frame is a state of intellectual isolationTechnopediaDefinition – What does Filter Bubble mean?, Retrieved October 10, 2017, "....A filter bubble is the intellectual isolation, that can occur when websites make us ...
of
personalized search Personalized search refers to web search experiences that are tailored specifically to an individual's interests by incorporating information about the individual beyond the specific query provided. There are two general approaches to personaliz ...
results. DuckDuckGo does not show search results from
content farm A content farm (or content mill) is a company that employs large numbers of freelance writers to generate a large amount of textual web content which is specifically designed to satisfy algorithms for maximal retrieval by automated search engine ...
s. It uses various
API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
s of other websites to show quick results to queries and for traditional links it uses the help of its partners (mainly
Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...
) and its own crawler. Because of its anonymity, it is impossible to know how many people use DuckDuckGo. The company is based in
Paoli, Pennsylvania Paoli ( ) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Chester County near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It is situated in portions of two townships: Tredyffrin and Willistown. At the 2010 census, it had a total population of 5,575. His ...
, in
Greater Philadelphia The Delaware Valley is a metropolitan region on the East Coast of the United States that comprises and surrounds Philadelphia, the sixth most populous city in the nation and 68th largest city in the world as of 2020. The toponym Delaware Vall ...
and had 200 employees . The company name is a reference to the children's game
duck, duck, goose Duck, Duck, Goose (also called Duck, Duck, Gray Duck or Daisy in the Dell or Quail, Quail, Quarry sometimes in New Jersey and New England) is a traditional children's game often first learned in preschool or kindergarten. The game may be later ...
.


History

DuckDuckGo was founded by Gabriel Weinberg and launched on February 29, 2008, in
Valley Forge Valley Forge functioned as the third of eight winter encampments for the Continental Army's main body, commanded by General George Washington, during the American Revolutionary War. In September 1777, Congress fled Philadelphia to escape the B ...
,
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
. Weinberg is an entrepreneur who previously launched
Names Database The Names Database is a now-defunct social network, owned and operated by Classmates.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of United Online. The site does not appear to be significantly updated since 2008, and has many broken links and display issues. Si ...
, a now-defunct social network. Initially self-funded by Weinberg until October 2011, it was then "backed by
Union Square Ventures Union Square Ventures (USV) is an American venture capital firm based in New York City. The firm has backed more than 130 startups, including Twitter, Etsy, Stripe, Coinbase, Zynga, Tumblr, Stack Overflow, Meetup, Kickstarter, MongoDB, Flurry, ...
and a handful of
angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...
s." Union Square partner Brad Burnham stated, "We invested in DuckDuckGo because we became convinced that it was not only possible to change the basis of competition in search, it was time to do it." In addition,
Trisquel Trisquel (full name Trisquel GNU/Linux) is a computer operating system, a Linux distribution, derived from another distribution, Ubuntu. The project aims for a fully free software system without proprietary software or firmware and uses a version ...
,
Linux Mint Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Ubuntu (which is in turn based on Debian), bundled with a variety of free and open-source applications. It can provide full out-of-the-box multimedia support for those who choose to i ...
, and the
Midori Midori (みどり, ミドリ, , , ) is the Japanese word for "green" and may refer to: Places * Midori, Gunma * Midori-ku, Chiba * Midori-ku, Nagoya * Midori-ku, Sagamihara * Midori-ku, Saitama * Midori-ku, Yokohama People Given name * M ...
web browser switched to use DuckDuckGo as their default search engine. DuckDuckGo gains revenue via advertisements and affiliate programs. The search engine is written in
Perl Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offici ...
and runs on
nginx Nginx (pronounced "engine x" ) is a web server that can also be used as a reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy and HTTP cache. The software was created by Igor Sysoev and publicly released in 2004. Nginx is free and open-source software ...
,
FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...
, and
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
. DuckDuckGo is built primarily upon search APIs from various vendors. Because of this,
TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...
characterized the service as a "hybrid" search engine. Weinberg explained the beginnings of the name with respect to the children's game
duck, duck, goose Duck, Duck, Goose (also called Duck, Duck, Gray Duck or Daisy in the Dell or Quail, Quail, Quarry sometimes in New Jersey and New England) is a traditional children's game often first learned in preschool or kindergarten. The game may be later ...
. He said of the origin of the name: "Really it just popped in my head one day and I just liked it. It is certainly influenced/derived from duck duck goose, but other than that there is no relation, e.g., a metaphor." DuckDuckGo was featured on
TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...
's Elevator Pitch Friday in 2008, and it was a finalist in the 2008
BOSS Boss may refer to: Occupations * Supervisor, often referred to as boss * Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier * Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization * Fire boss, a ...
Mashable Mashable is a digital media platform, news website and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005. History Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2005. Early iterations of the site were a ...
Challenge. In 2010, DuckDuckGo began using privacy to differentiate itself from its competitors. In July 2010, Weinberg started a DuckDuckGo community website (duck.co) to allow the public to report problems, discuss means of spreading the use of the search engine, request features, and discuss open sourcing the code. The company registered the
domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...
''ddg
.gg .gg is the country code top-level domain for the Bailiwick of Guernsey. The domain is administered by Island Networks, who also administer the .je domain for neighbouring territory Jersey. The domain was chosen as other possible codes were al ...
'' on February 22, 2011, and acquired ''duck.com'' in December 2018, which are used as shortened URL aliases that redirect to ''duckduckgo.com''. By May 2012, the search engine was attracting 1.5 million searches a day. Weinberg reported that it had earned in revenue in 2011 and had three employees, plus a small number of contractors.
Compete.com Compete.com was a web traffic analysis service. The company was founded in 2000 and ceased operations in December 2016. Services Compete.com provided two categories of information: *Site Analytics : a free service, where the user can enter any ...
estimated 266,465 unique visitors to the site in February 2012. On April 12, 2011,
Alexa Alexa may refer to: Technology *Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by Amazon * Alexa Internet, a defunct website ranking and traffic analysis service * Arri Alexa, a digital motion picture camera People *Alexa (name), a given name and ...
reported a 3-month growth rate of 51%. DuckDuckGo's own traffic statistics show that in August 2012 there were 1,393,644 visits per day, up from an average of 39,406 visits per day in April 2010 (the earliest data available). In a lengthy profile in November 2012, ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' indicated that searches on DuckDuckGo numbered up to 45,000,000 per month in October 2012. The article concluded:
"Weinberg's non-ambitious goals make him a particularly odd and dangerous competitor online. He can do almost everything that
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
or
Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...
can't because it could damage their business models, and if users figure out that they like the DuckDuckGo way better, Weinberg could damage the big boys without even really trying. It's asymmetrical digital warfare, and his backers at Union Square Ventures say Google is vulnerable."
GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...
released
Web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...
3.10 on September 26, 2013, and starting with this version, the default search engine is DuckDuckGo. At its keynote speech at WWDC 2014 on September 18, 2014, Apple announced that DuckDuckGo would be included as an option for search on both
iOS 8 iOS 8 is the eighth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 7. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 2, 2014, and was released on September 17, ...
and
OS X Yosemite OS X Yosemite ( ; version 10.10) is the eleventh major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Yosemite was announced and released to developers on June 2, 2014, at WWDC 2014 and rel ...
in its
Safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...
browser. On March 10, the
Pale Moon Pale Moon is an open-source web browser with an emphasis on customization; its motto is "Your browser, Your way". There are official releases for Microsoft Windows and Linux, as well as contributed builds for various platforms. Pale Moon origi ...
web browser, starting with version 24.4.0, included DuckDuckGo as its default search engine, as well as listed it on the browser's homepage. In May 2014, DuckDuckGo released a redesigned version to beta testers through DuckDuckHack. On May 21, 2014, DuckDuckGo officially released the redesigned version that focused on smarter answers and a more refined look. The new version added many new features such as images, local search, auto-suggest, weather, recipes, and more. On November 10, 2014,
Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, wi ...
added DuckDuckGo as a search option to Firefox 33.1. On May 30, 2016,
The Tor Project, Inc The Tor Project, Inc. is a Seattle-based 501(c)(3) research-education nonprofit organization founded by computer scientists Roger Dingledine, Nick Mathewson and five others. The Tor Project is primarily responsible for maintaining software for t ...
made DuckDuckGo the default search engine for
Tor Browser Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to conc ...
6.0. In July 2016, DuckDuckGo officially announced the extension of its partnership with
Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
that brought new features to all users of the search engine, including date filtering of results and additional site links. It also partners with Bing, Yandex, and Wikipedia to produce results or make use of features offered. The company also confirmed that it does not share user information with partner companies, as has always been its policy. On January 23, 2018, DuckDuckGo revamped its browser extension and mobile app in an effort to keep Internet users safe "beyond the search box". The revamped extension and app include a tool for rating websites based on their use of encryption and ad-tracking networks as well as the ability to block ad-tracking networks. The extension also provides Terms of service summaries from Terms of Service; Didn't Read. In December 2018, it was reported that Google transferred ownership of the domain name Duck.com to DuckDuckGo. It is not known what price, if any, DuckDuckGo paid for the domain name. On January 15, 2019, DuckDuckGo announced that all map and address-related searches would be powered by
Apple Maps Apple Maps is a web mapping service developed by Apple Inc. The default map system of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS, it provides directions and estimated times of arrival for driving, walking, cycling, and public transportation navigation. ...
, both on
desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...
and
mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...
s. In March 2019, Google added DuckDuckGo to the default search engine list in Chrome 73. In July 2021, DuckDuckGo introduced its
email forwarding Email forwarding generically refers to the operation of re-sending an email message delivered to one email address to one or more different email addresses. The term ''forwarding'', used for mail since long before electronic communications, has no ...
feature Email Protection, which lets users claim an "@duck.com" email address generated by the service. That inbox will receive emails and strip them of data trackers before forwarding them to the user's private email address. The feature launched in beta for users of the DuckDuckGo iOS and Android apps. , it had 102,704,358 daily searches on average. On March 1, 2022, in response to the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...
, DuckDuckGo paused its partnership with
Yandex Search Yandex Search () is a search engine. It is owned by Yandex, based in Russia. In January 2015, Yandex Search generated 51.2% of all of the search traffic in Russia according to . About The search technology provides local search results in more ...
. On March 9, 2022, Weinberg said in a tweet that DuckDuckGo will down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation, a move which some users criticized as censorship and a violation of the search engine's commitment to "unbiased search." DuckDuckGo has defended itself from the criticism, saying that "The primary utility of a search engine is to provide access to accurate information. Disinformation sites that deliberately put out false information to intentionally mislead people directly cut against that utility." In April 2022,
TorrentFreak __NOTOC__ TorrentFreak (TF) is a blog dedicated to reporting the latest news and trends on the BitTorrent protocol and file sharing, as well as on copyright infringement and digital rights. The website was started in November 2005 by a Dutchman ...
reported that DuckDuckGo had blocked search results for some major pirating websites, including
The Pirate Bay The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute mag ...
,
1337x 1337x is a website that provides a directory of torrent files and magnet links used for peer-to-peer file sharing through the BitTorrent protocol. According to the TorrentFreak news blog, 1337x is the second most popular torrent website as of 202 ...
and
FMovies FMovies is a series of copyright infringement websites that host links and embedded videos, allowing users to stream or download movies for free. History The site was created in 2016 according to ''TorrentFreak,'' and blocked from Google searc ...
, as well as video downloading software
Youtube-dl youtube-dl is a free and open source download manager for video and audio from YouTube and over 1,000 other video hosting websites. It is released under the Unlicense software license. As of September 2021, youtube-dl is one of the most starred ...
. In a statement to ''
Engadget ''Engadget'' ( ) is a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics. ''Engadget'' manages ten blogs four of which are written in English and six have international versions with independent editori ...
'', DuckDuckGo said that The Pirate Bay and Youtube-dl were never removed from its search results if the user searched for those websites using their name or web address. DuckDuckGo also said that there were problems with "site:" search queries used for these websites and other searches and said that the problem had been fixed. Also in April, DuckDuckGo said that they would protect users from being tracked by Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages framework, stating: "When you load or share a Google AMP page anywhere from DuckDuckGo apps (iOS/Android/Mac) or extensions (Firefox/Chrome), the original publisher's webpage will be used in place of the Google AMP version". In May 2022, a report from ''
Bleeping Computer ''Bleeping Computer'' is a website covering technology news and offering free computer help via its forums that was created by Lawrence Abrams in 2004. It publishes news focusing heavily on cybersecurity, but also covers other topics including c ...
'' by security researcher Zach Edwards found that DuckDuckGo's web browser allows Microsoft's trackers to continue running while visiting non-DuckDuckGo websites, contrary to Google and Facebook trackers, which are blocked. In response, Weinberg said that "this issue is occurring on browsers and only pertains to non-DuckDuckGo websites.", adding that "When you load our search results, you are completely anonymous, including ads", and that "Unfortunately our Microsoft search syndication agreement prevent us from doing more to Microsoft-owned properties. However, we have been continually pushing and expect to be doing more soon.", adding that "What we're talking about here is an above-and-beyond protection that most browsers don't even attempt to do — that is, blocking third-party tracking scripts before they load on 3rd party websites. Because we're doing this where we can, users are still getting significantly more privacy protection with DuckDuckGo than they would using Safari, Firefox and other browsers."


Features


Search results

DuckDuckGo's results are a compilation of "over 400" sources according to itself, including
Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...
,
Yahoo! Search BOSS Yahoo Search BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) was a Yahoo! Developer Network initiative to provide an open search web services platform. Yahoo discontinued BOSS JSON Search API, BOSS Placefinder API, BOSS Placespotter API and as well BOSS Hos ...
,
Wolfram Alpha WolframAlpha ( ) is an answer engine developed by Wolfram Research. It answers factual queries by computing answers from externally sourced data. WolframAlpha was released on May 18, 2009 and is based on Wolfram's earlier product Wolfram Mathe ...
,
Yandex Yandex LLC (russian: link=no, Яндекс, p=ˈjandəks) is a Russian multinational technology company providing Internet-related products and services, including an Internet search engine, information services, e-commerce, transportation, maps ...
, and its own
web crawler A Web crawler, sometimes called a spider or spiderbot and often shortened to crawler, is an Internet bot that systematically browses the World Wide Web and that is typically operated by search engines for the purpose of Web indexing (''web spid ...
(the DuckDuckBot); but none from Google. It also uses data from
crowdsourced Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...
sites such as
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
, to populate knowledge panel boxes to the right of the search results. Weinberg has refined the quality of his search engine results by deleting search results for companies he believes are content mills, such as
eHow eHow is an online how-to guide with many articles and 170,000 videos offering step-by-step instructions. eHow articles and videos are created by freelancers and cover a wide variety of topics organized into a hierarchy of categories. Any eHow use ...
, which publishes 4,000 articles per day produced by paid freelance writers, which Weinberg states to be "low-quality content designed specifically to rank highly in Google's search index". DuckDuckGo also filters pages with substantial advertising.


Instant Answers

In addition to the indexed search results, DuckDuckGo displays relevant results, called Instant Answers, on top of the search page. These Instant Answers are collected from either third party APIs or static data sources like text files. The Instant Answers are called ''zeroclickinfo'' because the intention behind these is to provide what users are searching for on the search result page itself so that they do not have to click any results to find what they are looking for. Instant answers are created by and maintained by a community of over 1,500 open source contributors. This community has come to be known as DuckDuckHack. , there were 1236 Instant Answers active. In the DuckDuckHack documentation, four types of Instant Answers are described: ''Goodies, Spices, Fatheads,'' and ''Longtails''. These types of Instant Answer extensions are differentiated by how their data is retrieved. Goodies do not retrieve data from a third party API, whereas Spices do. Goodies instead use some form of the aforementioned static data sources, such as text files or JSON files. Fathead Instant Answers are key-value answers hosted on DuckDuckGo's backend. Fathead key-value pairs function similarly to a trigger for showing the respective Instant Answer. Longtail Instant Answers are full text queries to a DuckDuckGo database of articles. Paragraphs or snippets from any matching articles are returned, and the section that matches the user's query is highlighted.


Tor access

In August 2010, DuckDuckGo introduced anonymous searching, including an exit enclave, for its search engine traffic using
Tor network Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to conc ...
and enabling access through a "Tor hidden service" (
onion service Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to con ...
). '(deprecated) was the DuckDuckGo v2 onion service on Tor. This allows anonymity by routing traffic through a series of encrypted relays. Weinberg stated: "I believe this fits right in line with our privacy policy. Using Tor and DDG, you can now be end to end anonymous with your searching. And if you use our encrypted homepage, you can be end to end encrypted as well." In July 2021, DuckDuckGo introduced a new v3 onion service, with a new link: '.


Bangs

DuckDuckGo includes "!Bang" keywords, which give users the ability to search on specific third-party websites – using the site's own search engine if applicable. As of August 2020, 13,564 "bangs" for a diverse range of internet sites are available. In December 2018, around 2,000 "bangs" were deleted. Some of them were deleted due to being broken, while others, such as searches of pirated content sites, were deleted for liability reasons.


Business model

DuckDuckGo earns revenue by serving ads from the Yahoo-Bing search alliance network and through affiliate relationships with Amazon and eBay. As a privacy-focused search engine, the ads served on DuckDuckGo are based on keywords and terms of the search query. The company supports charitable organizations that work to improve privacy, In 2021 they donated
US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
1M to these causes and had donated $3,650,000 over the previous decade. Major donations for 2021 included $200,000 to the
Center for Information Technology Policy The Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) at Princeton University is a leading interdisciplinary research center, dedicated to exploring the intersection of technology, engineering, public policy, and the social sciences. Faculty, stu ...
, $150,000 to the
Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...
, $75,000 to
European Digital Rights European Digital Rights (EDRi) is an international advocacy group headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. EDRi is a network collective of non-profit organizations (NGO), experts, advocates and academics working to defend and advance digital rights ...
(EDRi) and $75,000 to
The Markup ''The Markup'' is an American nonprofit news publication focused on the impact of technology on society. Founded in 2018 with the goal of advancing data-driven journalism, the publication is headquartered in New York City. History ''The Marku ...
.


Source code

Some of DuckDuckGo's
source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...
is
free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
hosted at
GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
under the Apache 2.0 License, but the core is
proprietary {{Short pages monitor