Your tech choices matter more than ever. That’s why at Firefox, we believe in empowering users to make informed decisions that align with their values. I
I’m sorry but that is not correct. In the link that you shared to their privacy statement it is explicitly stated that they do not collect your identity when using the service. They say that your identity " is the information we use to ensure that you are who you say you are when you make a de-listing request, report or create an account. This includes: first name, last name, email address."
Furthermore, unlike duckduckgo which to my knowledge relies entirely on Bing’s search index, Qwant does actually index the web itself and only uses the Bing index when a search returns insufficient hits from their own index. When they query the microsoft index they send the following data along: “Search keywords; Information about the browser you are using (the User Agent); The first three bytes of your IP address; The approximate geographic area at the origin of the search, at the scale of a region or city; The salty hash generated from your IP address, your User Agent and a salt changing no later than every 3 months; A random token generated by Qwant (aiming to limit data cross-checking).”
I do not know much about DuckDuckGo, but from an initial read the privacy policy is much more vague than Qwant’s, not mentioning any specific information that is shared. As they are a US company, they are also not covered by the general data protection regulation.
In general, both search engines seem to do a good job at protecting users’ privacy, which to me sounds like something that should be encouraged, not polluted with misinformation.
You’re probably wondering why I say “your full IP address” versus “partial IP address”; you quote the policy correctly but you missed a separate but crucial section in the privacy policy:
In addition, for security purposes and reliability of our partner’s services (detection of spam, automated activity, fraudulent clicks on advertisements …), Qwant may also collect and transfer to this partner [Microsoft Ireland] your full IP address.
The transfer happens separately from searches, sure, but if two requests get sent to Microsoft at the same time and with the same parsable information (the full IP address from the security query can be used to link a partial IP address and city-level location from a search query) then it seems like Qwant is giving Microsoft the ability, even if unintentionally, to link IP address and search.
I do not know much about DuckDuckGo, but from an initial read the privacy policy is much more vague than Qwant’s, not mentioning any specific information that is shared. As they are a US company, they are also not covered by the general data protection regulation.
I agree and I’ll add a disclaimer or something. DuckDuckGo says this:
In order for our product to function, we share anonymous browser and device information with our hosting and content providers for security and display purposes (for example, that you’re using a mobile device
)*
Fair points. Thank you for amending your comment 👍. I wonder in which situations Qwant sends the full IP address specifically. The wording is a bit vague
I’m sorry but that is not correct. In the link that you shared to their privacy statement it is explicitly stated that they do not collect your identity when using the service. They say that your identity " is the information we use to ensure that you are who you say you are when you make a de-listing request, report or create an account. This includes: first name, last name, email address."
Furthermore, unlike duckduckgo which to my knowledge relies entirely on Bing’s search index, Qwant does actually index the web itself and only uses the Bing index when a search returns insufficient hits from their own index. When they query the microsoft index they send the following data along: “Search keywords; Information about the browser you are using (the User Agent); The first three bytes of your IP address; The approximate geographic area at the origin of the search, at the scale of a region or city; The salty hash generated from your IP address, your User Agent and a salt changing no later than every 3 months; A random token generated by Qwant (aiming to limit data cross-checking).”
I do not know much about DuckDuckGo, but from an initial read the privacy policy is much more vague than Qwant’s, not mentioning any specific information that is shared. As they are a US company, they are also not covered by the general data protection regulation.
In general, both search engines seem to do a good job at protecting users’ privacy, which to me sounds like something that should be encouraged, not polluted with misinformation.
You’re probably wondering why I say “your full IP address” versus “partial IP address”; you quote the policy correctly but you missed a separate but crucial section in the privacy policy:
The transfer happens separately from searches, sure, but if two requests get sent to Microsoft at the same time and with the same parsable information (the full IP address from the security query can be used to link a partial IP address and city-level location from a search query) then it seems like Qwant is giving Microsoft the ability, even if unintentionally, to link IP address and search.
I agree and I’ll add a disclaimer or something. DuckDuckGo says this:
Any company doing business with EU residents has to comply with GDPR, even if it is not from the EU.
Fair points. Thank you for amending your comment 👍. I wonder in which situations Qwant sends the full IP address specifically. The wording is a bit vague
DuckDuckGo claims to also use more than just Bing.