The internet search engine DuckDuckGo has been experiencing a great growth as the company hits the 10 billion total anonymous searches and over 14 million searches a day mark. Out of the 10 billion mentioned above, 4 billion searches were made in December 2016. It is no wonder that the team behind DuckDuckGo are in excited as ever.
Cofounder of the company, said, “We are proud to say that at the end of 2016, we surpassed a count of 10 billion anonymous searches served in total, with over 4 billion in 2016. We are growing faster than ever with our first 14Million a day on Jan 10, 2017.”
The market in which DuckDuckGo works is very competitive and that makes their growth more and more remarkable. It is not an easy feat taking customers away from the likes of legends like Google. When they are asked about their catalyst for their huge growth in a fairly saturated market, DuckDuckGo said that it owed the growth due to the public fear and concerns about their individual privacy and the privacy of their searches and data. Scepticism regarding a companies ability and willingness to protect public privacy is one more reason for DuckDuckGo’s recent growth.
This company is not alone in their assertion, they are backed by Pew Research which conducted a study that found some 40% of internet users say that a search engine provider “should not retain information about their activity”
DuckDuckGo is not merely content with raising privacy standards for itself; it is dedicated to improving the privacy of users in general. This is highlighted by the fact DuckDuckGo recently donated $225,000 to 9 organisations who are privacy-focussed. The company is always looking to aid companies who have privacy as a central tenant of their policy. DuckDuckGo has the vision of wanting to be the most trusted search engine in the world which may explain the companies obsession with transparency and privacy.