Duckduckgo for the first time with 100 million searches in one day
No time right now?
The – postponed – announcement of new data protection rules on Whatsapp drove millions of users to compete – and Duckduckgo reached 100 million daily search queries for the first time.
On Friday, Facebook subsidiary Whatsapp stated that the new data protection guideline should not apply until May 15. Previously, the announcement of new rules for the beginning of February had caused a massive flight of users to alternative services such as Signal or Threema. Apparently, a large number of users also remembered preferring to use a privacy-friendly Google alternative such as Duckduckgo when searching the Internet.
Contents
Duckduckgo can help change the WhatsApp terms and conditions
On Monday, the privacy-conscious search engine cracked – for the first time in its twelve-year history – the mark of 100 million search queries in just one day, like zdnet.com writes. Specifically, on January 14, 2020, a good 102.25 million users entered a search query in the Duckduckgo search slot.
The development of the past few days shows that the rush of users is not only related to the changes to the terms and conditions on Whatsapp. On January 1, Duckduckgo had around 78 million searches. That number shot up to 89 million on Jan. 4, two days before the possible changes to the privacy policy became known.
It wasn’t until January 10 that there were more than 90 million daily search queries, and a day later the new record was reached. In the following days, the number of search queries remained at a high level, but below the 100 million mark. All in all booked Duckduckgo in January so far (January 1 to 14) an average of around 90 million search queries a day. For comparison: Google is supposed to have around 5.6 billion search queries per day.
What is behind the WhatsApp escape?
In the future, Whatsapp should be able to transmit all data to Facebook – and should thus personalize advertisements more. The previous option to object to sharing your own account information with Facebook will then no longer apply. Users should also be annoyed that those who do not agree to the new regulations are no longer allowed to use WhatsApp.
However, according to Whatsapp, this requirement to consent to data exchange does not apply to users in Europe. Outside the EU, some WhatsApp user data has been flowing to Facebook for advertising purposes or to improve products since 2016.
