DuckDuckGo Privacy
We don't collect or share personal information.
That's our privacy policy in a nutshell.
DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information. That is our privacy policy in a nutshell. The rest of this page tries to explain why you should care.
Last updated on 04/11/12. Removed ", which gets sent to my personal email." in last paragraph as our feedback is now handled by multiple team members via desk.com.
Before that, on 03/11/12. Removed dead link (Scroogle) and added a missing 'to'.
Before that, on 11/16/10. This paragraph was added.
Before that, on 9/25/10. This paragraph was added.
Before that, on 9/16/10. This paragraph was added.
Why You Should Care
Search Leakage top
At other search engines, when you do a search and then click on a link, your search terms are sent to that site you clicked on (in the HTTP referrer header). We call this sharing of personal information "search leakage."
For example, when you search for something private, you are sharing that private search not only with your search engine, but also with all the sites that you clicked on (for that search).
DuckDuckGo prevents search leakage by default. Instead, when you click on a link on our site, we route (redirect) that request in such a way so that it does not send your search terms to other sites. The other sites will still know that you visited them, but they will not know what search you entered beforehand.
Another way to prevent search leakage is by using something called a POST request, which has the effect of not showing your search in your browser, and, as a consequence, does not send it to other sites.
Finally, if you want to prevent sites from knowing you visited them at all, you can use a proxy like Tor. DuckDuckGo actually operates a Tor exit enclave, which means you can get end to end anonymous and encrypted searching using Tor & DDG together.
Search History top
Other search engines save your search history. Usually your searches are saved along with the date and time of the search, some information about your computer (e.g. your IP address, User agent and often a unique identifier stored in a browser cookie).
The bottom line is if search engines have your information, it could get out, even if they have the best intentions. And this information (your search history) can be pretty personal.
For these reasons, DuckDuckGo takes the approach to not collect any personal information. The decisions of whether and how to comply with law enforcement requests are out of our hands. Your search history is safe with us because it cannot be tied to you in any way.
Information
Information Not Collected top
When you search at DuckDuckGo, we don't know who you are and there is no way to tie your searches together.
Because this information could be used to link you to your searches, we do not log (store) it at all. This is a very unusual practice, but we feel it is an important step to protect your privacy.
Information Collected top
At DuckDuckGo, no cookies are used by default. If you have changed any settings, then cookies are used to store those changes.
Additionally, if you use our !bang syntax/dropdown, which bangs you use are stored in a cookie so that we can list your most frequently used ones on top of the !bang dropdown box. We also save searches, but again, not in a personally identifiable way, as we do not store IP addresses or unique User agent strings.
Information Shared top
If you turn redirects off in the settings and you don't either turn POST on or use our encrypted site, then your search could leak to sites you click on. Yet as explained above, this does not happen by default.
Also, like anyone else, we will comply with court ordered legal requests. However, in our case, we don't expect any because there is nothing useful to give them since we don't collect any personal information.
Other
Other Search Engines top
If you care about search privacy, you might also want to check out these other search engines that take it seriously by default.
Updates top
If this policy is substantively updated, we will update the text of this page and provide notice to you at https://duckduckgo.com/about by writing '(Updated)' in red next to the link to this page for a period of at least 30 days.
Feedback top
I (Gabriel Weinberg) am the founder of Duck Duck Go and personally wrote this privacy policy. If you have any questions or concerns, please submit feedback.