[kwlug-disc] DDG in the news again

[Paul Nijjar]

On Fri, May 27, 2022 at 07:09:21AM -0400, Doug Moen wrote:
> 
> DDG claims they use URL redirection in this case to prevent the HTTP Referer header from containing a link back to DDG. It's to improve privacy and prevent tracking by the sites you visit (those sites can't see the search term you used to reach them).
>   https://duckduckgo.com/privacy

If you look at the URL that is generated for my search: 


> "https://duckduckgo.com/l/?uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fkwlug.org%2F&rut=cabb8327a6e42ae258b2db8cddd62e769e7f11e8165b56a492ca6205af89b2bd",

there is a mysterious "rut" parameter. It is not documented at
https://duckduckgo.com/params . I remain skeptical.

It looks as if this rut parameter is the same across searches for the
same website. But it is different for the different search results.

(The real answer is: "dive into the source code and see what is going
on" but it is easier to ignorantly complain on the Internet.)

- Paul

> 
> Doug Moen.
> 
> On Fri, May 27, 2022, at 2:18 AM, Ronald Barnes wrote:
> > Paul Nijjar via kwlug-disc wrote on 2022-05-26 21:04:
> >
> >> I use them because they seem to
> >> the least harmful, not because I enthusiastically support them.
> >
> > Same here. DDG works well enough but I'm not especially loyal or anything.
> >
> >
> >
> >> Data point: I search for KWLUG on DDG. The link to kwlug.org comes up
> >> as the first search result. Great! But the link I click is to
> >> "https://duckduckgo.com/l/?uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fkwlug.org%2F&rut=cabb8327a6e42ae258b2db8cddd62e769e7f11e8165b56a492ca6205af89b2bd",
> >> not"https://kwlug.org"  . 
> >
> > I just searched it in a Firefox "incognito" window, and KWLUG.org is the 
> > first result.  The link is directly to http://kwlug.org/, no tracking.
> >
> >
> >> Somebody is tracking my click. Why is this
> >> okay in a search engine that pretends to care about my privacy?
> >
> > Hypothetically, it would be okay because they merely track "which result 
> > does a user click for query term 'X'?", which can be used to improve 
> > results.
> >
> > As long as it isn't tied to a user, I can see it being reasonable to 
> > gather such metrics.
> >
> >
> > Tested again, "KWLUG" in a non-incognito Firefox window, no tracking again.
> >
> >
> > I wonder if anyone else can test if they get URL tracking, it'd be 
> > interesting to test...
> >
> >
> >
> > Looking at the storage in Firefox for DDG, no storage other than 
> > cryptically named cookies; 8 of them, all set to expire after session.
> >
> > Not sure what to make of that, but doesn't raise any immediate concerns.
> >
> >
> > rb
> >
> >
> >
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> 
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