While companies like DuckDuckGo offer safeguarding from aggressive and intrusive trackers, there’s usually a caveat.Launched in 2008, DuckDuckGo is an alternative to Google Search that emphasizes privacy and security. So, while this does sound like a bit of a storm in a teacup, it’s always a lesson to web users: Never assume full protection.

Because we’re doing this where we can, users are still getting significantly more privacy protection with DuckDuckGo than they would using Safari, Firefox and other browsers.”

It added: “What we’re talking about here is an above-and-beyond protection that most browsers don’t even attempt to do - that is, blocking third-party tracking scripts before they load on 3rd party websites.

In a statement, the company added that it cannot promise full anonymity for browser users, but it goes much further than the likes of Safari, Firefox and others by blocking them before the launch on third party websites. We’ve been working tirelessly behind the scenes to change these requirements, though our syndication agreement also has a confidentially provision that prevents disclosing details.” However, we have been continually pushing and expect to be doing more soon. For non-search tracker blocking (eg in our browser), we block most third-party trackers.”Unfortunately our Microsoft search syndication agreement prevent us from doing more to Microsoft-owned properties. From our public ads page, ‘Microsoft Advertising does not associate your ad-click behaviour with a user profile’. For ads, we worked with Microsoft to make ad clicks protected. He wrote: “When you load our search results, you are completely anonymous, including ads. The DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg responded by saying it is working with Microsoft make sure third-party trackers are blocked on Microsoft-owned companies such as those mentioned by Edwards.

However, DuckDuckGo has attempted to provide the context for the arrangement: It actually worked with Microsoft to help make ad clicks protected and the limited tracking is a side-effect it’s attempting to rectify. It’s not a great look for a company that preaches so earnestly about the public’s right for their activity not to be tracked across the web. You can capture data within the DuckDuckGo so-called private browser on a website like Facebook's and you'll see that DDG does NOT stop data flows to Microsoft's Linkedin domains or their Bing advertising domains.

Duck private browser