DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine, has found itself amid a controversy over claims that it conducts tracking of its users.

An agreement has come to light that DuckDuckGo allows Microsoft to use its trackers when users go to third-party sites through its browser. This means that, when user clicks on an ad link, Microsoft may track their IP address.

The protocol was discovered by security researcher Zach Edwards. During a security audit on DuckDuckGo’s browser, he found that while it blocked trackers from Google and Facebook, it allowed Microsoft trackers to run.

Sometimes you find something so disturbing during an audit, you’ve gotta check/recheck because you assume that *something* must be broken in the test.

But I’m confident now.

The new @DuckDuckGo browsers for iOS/Android don’t block Microsoft data flows, for LinkedIn or Bing.🧵 pic.twitter.com/ol7Ydfo3BJ

— Zach Edwards 🔗infosec.exchange/@thezedwards (@thezedwards) May 23, 2022

This includes Microsoft-owned domains, such as Bing and LinkedIn.

In a statement, DuckDuckGo CEO and Founder Gabriel Weinberg said that an agreement with Microsoft, which helps provide some of its search capabilities, prevented it from blocking its trackers.

“Unfortunately, our Microsoft search syndication agreement prevents us from doing more to Microsoft-owned properties. However, we have been continually pushing and expect to be doing more soon,” he said in a Tweet.

Privacy

DuckDuckGo has long capitalised on privacy concerns around how search engines treat their users’ data.

Privacy and the use of data by tech giants like Google and Apple has been a growing concern for millions of people.

For example, a recent study warned that advertising tracking shares the data of UK citizens around 462 times per day.

And that’s when things function normally. Controversies, such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, have driven people to take their privacy more seriously.

It is against this background that DuckDuckGo has found a niche, and success, by advertising itself as a privacy-first service.

Launched in 2008, it reached 100 million searches in one day in early 2021. This, in part, was down to it riding a wave of privacy concerns after popular messaging service WhatsApp revealed plans to share data with its parent company, Facebook, in certain jurisdictions.

This controversy helped propel a wave of people migrating to other messaging services that offered greater privacy and security, such as Signal and Telegram.

Among DuckDuckGo’s features are that it does not scrape user data, doesn’t track location, and provides consistent search results for every user. Its adverts are contextual, rather than building profiles on its users.

The company also released an email protection service to fight back against email tracking. This allocates anyone who signs up to it with a free @duck.com address. Any emails sent to it have email trackers stripped out before being forwarded to the user’s regular address.

A DuckDuckGo web browser is also available for iOS and Android, which uses HTTPS-always encryption and third-party cookie blocking to keep user activity private.

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With DuckDuckGo riding a wave of concerns around privacy, its tracking deal with Microsoft appears to betray its core values.

While Microsoft can track IP addresses for ‘accounting purposes’, the activity is not connected to a broader user profile. It also only affects users of the company’s browser, not its search engine.

Weinberg reassured people that the tracking only occurs on third-party sites, not on DuckDuckGo itself. “When you load our search results, you are completely anonymous, including ads,” he said.

However, a lack of transparency over the issue has damaged some of the trust its customers have in the company.

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