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Discussion on: Are we Developers helping Google to build an unstoppable monopoly?

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Michael "notriddle" Howell • Edited

Have you ever compared normal Google search with doing a Google search through Tor browser? When used through Tor, Google Search is a lot closer to DuckDuckGo. When used logged in, with all the personalization, Google is much better at figuring out what I mean.

When I ask you a question on here, you have the benefit of a lot of context (the conversation we're having or have had in the past, the website I'm posting it on, my name and profile picture). When I ask DuckDuckGo, or Google through Tor, they have almost nothing to go on other than the literal words I typed.

There is a real problem with Google having all this information, because of the filter bubble effect, the capacity for leaking, and the sheer POWER that comes from their ability to shape the narrative and knowledge base of their users. But I'm annoyed at all the privacy-rhetoric that ignores the fact that they're delivering value with all of it: Google has actual reasons for operating the way they do, and if you want to do better, you have to actually offer something more, not just "it's Google but without the value of being able to use context to figure out what your search queries mean".

And I actually use DuckDuckGo. I've been switching off of tracking-centric services like Twitter and Google after the 2016 presidential election caught me completely off guard. The filter bubble is real, and zero-tracking platforms should focus on the value of breaking it (DDG already does, but I haven't seen much mention of it on DEV).