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DuckDuckGo starting to give more "personal" search results (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 months ago by Cataphract@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml
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Been slowly running into more results from DDG that seem to have some "personal parameter" or difference in search results. I had a search saved from some months ago, went to check it for some references and got new hits involving local organizations that had nothing to do with the search. Opening up a private browser I see that the searches aren't 100% matching up either.

I see this as only getting worse, I want to be able to enter a search and it searches for my query. Not based on my personality or whatever info is being collected. Does anyone know a search engine that's reliable and focuses on giving the same results and doesn't try this "personalized" crap?

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[-] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 42 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

This would be a major issue, because DDG specifically claims it does not store any identifying information about you.

https://duckduckgo.com/privacy

I had a search saved from some months ago, went to check it for some references and got new hits involving local organizations that had nothing to do with the search. Opening up a private browser I see that the searches aren’t 100% matching up either.

my guess is this is just variation in the search algorithms over time. excerpt from their privacy policy above which I think can explain most of the variability you mentioned:

"For example, we may know that we got a lot of searches for "cute cat pictures" today, but we don’t know who actually performed those searches. That is, viewing search results on DuckDuckGo is anonymous. And we only save these anonymous search queries — completely disconnected from any unique identifiers like IP addresses — for just enough time to analyze anonymous trends like popular searches, so that we can better serve you. For local search results in particular, we've further engineered a solution to shield your precise location from us and our content providers that sends us a random location nearish to you, which we also never log to disk."

So they do use your geo IP and popular searches to weigh results which can change over time.

[-] 50MYT@aussie.zone 18 points 2 months ago

Yep.

For the simple response - they group all the searches from your location based on IP, and the results are weighted from that.

So if your town has a airshow on, all the DDG users that search for airshow near you will bump those responses up the weighting scale for all uses in your area. Regardless of you search for it.

[-] Evotech@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

The location is very rough, not even the same town. Usually it things I'm in a while different country in Europe

this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2024
203 points (94.3% liked)

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