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Google Maps renames “Lake Ontario” to “Lake America” even faster than US government (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Google rolled out the Lake America change on Saturday, while the official US government maps are still waiting.

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[–] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Duckduckgo is backed by microsoft/bing which they have a contract with.

Startpage is the duckduck alternative that uses google, its unknown wether they have a contract.

These places are still better then google/bing themselves but people often wrongfully assume that they provide a privacy oriented service.

If you really want to go anticorporate you can host your own searxng, which still by default uses results from google and bing but can be configured to use any on your preference and its code open to verify that they do not give exclusive permission to certain paying corporations.

Using searxng it can happen that some google result could not be retrieved because of api limits… one has to wonder why Startpage does not have those limits.

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  • [–] 4 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 child)

    But even just getting off the main Google search page is huge. So much of this is about adopting a posture of flexibility and taking responsibility for your data to some extent, and which companies you can and can't tolerate. So just rejecting the convenience of using Google as search is great.

    Because now you don't feel so totally helpless—you've got an example of exercising your agency over your "digital life" and you can keep doing it as needed/desired with greater ease.

    Main thing to realise is you're not going to find a drop-in replacement for Google that is some giant centralised search and auth platform strangely super-motivated to reduce friction between you accessing products online.

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  • [–] 3 points 21 hours ago (1 child)

    I did say there still better then the main page but i guess i should have put more emphasis on that.

    I know many people irl who are are into computers and use ddg, blindly trusting that there search is fully private while there current search terms are directly used to serve them ads (somehow that does not count as personalized)

    Its shades of grey, i am very happy they took agency to get rid of google but I really wish people, at least in the computer sector, where more aware of how far corporate reach goes.

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  • [–] 2 points 15 hours ago

    You're good, I just wanted to make the point for anyone who might just give up and stick with Google because they can't decide on a perfectly virtuous replacement.

    Any change from the mainstream is a good change. But for anyone who wants to dig even deeper, oooo boy is that something you can get into.

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  • [–] 3 points 21 hours ago (1 child)

    Sure, duckduckgo dosent have their own web crawlers. Duckduckgo uses someone elses index in this case Microsofts. This dosent mean they sell your data to microsoft or that your search queries fingerprint you the same way as microsoft. They just use microsoft's big list of websites

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  • [–] 2 points 16 hours ago (1 child)

    They have a long standing corporate deal with microsoft.

    The details are vague but this is not hidden, or kept secret.

    Ddg has themselves said that the policy that required them to give exclusive acces to Microsoft trackers no longer applied and now blocks them since 2022. This is on the Wikipedia i shared.

    But if you read between them lines. They are following Microsoft policies, if they are now allowed to block those trackers its because microslop allowed them to do so.

    Tech companies only do such thing if they have incentives. A more covert way to get the same data, a long term plan to acquire and otherwise for PR.

    Searxng also uses those same search querys but without corporate deal. Thats why if you refresh a lot you hit an api limit.. any search engine that does not do that while using these trackers is somehow paying or bartering for access.

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  • [–] 2 points 15 hours ago

    The wiki referance linked and subsequent article talk about trackers on the DDG browser not about search queries. DDG have a corperate license with Microsoft, sure, but any amount of line reading on or between seems conspirital at best.

    Looks like this corperate contract with Microsoft is a secret especially if you have to "between the lines" read about a completly seperate product.

    And i go to a publicly hosted instance of searxng and immediatly get told the past 10 search queries? Dosent seem magicaly private to me. To which your response might be "its designed to be selfhosted. " Sure that maybe the case, but we are just putting extra lines on this social contract to read between now. Not terrible but not perfect, which is the same area DuckDuckGo is playing in so i am prepared to take them at their word.

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  • [–] 3 points 21 hours ago* (1 child)

    people often wrongfully assume that they provide a privacy oriented service.

    What do you think they provide then? DDG sits between me and Bing, the latter doesn't get my data.

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  • [–] 1 point 16 hours ago* (1 child)

    Microsoft does get your data. This is why i wrote that comment.

    Read the wikipedia entry. Microsoft and ddg have a long standing openly known about deal.

    Microsoft allows ddg to block bing trackers since 2022, ddg has always allowed them till then. but they must be getting something else to change that policy. No way microsoft is just giving api acces out of being good.

    Its getting tired to repeat myself, which are verifiable facts.

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  • [–] 1 point 16 hours ago (1 child)

    Microsoft does get your data

    they must be getting something else

    which are verifiable facts

    “My source is that I decided it must be true.”

    You realize that DDG is a commercial company and they use part of the revenue to pay for third-party services they use? Or did you think they just run the service for shits and giggles?

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  • [–] 1 point 16 hours ago* (1 child)

    You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.

    I think the words of Gabriel Weinberg ( founder of ddg) as recorded on Wikipedia is a reliable source but you don’t have to believe him.

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  • [–] 1 point 15 hours ago* (1 child)

    Show me where Weinberg said that DDG continues to allow MS' trackers to this day, or sends them other data, which is what you claim, continuing to weasel out of supporting it with any evidence except for “I feel that way”.

    Besides, you must have missed that the trackers affair was about the DDG browser, whereas this thread is about the search engine.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 hours ago*

    Again for clarity i think its fine that people use ddg, its betters then bing and google. But the absolute trust people seem to have is wild considering all of this. I occasionally use both ddg and startpage myself

    The summary of my evidence is the hyperlink in my first comment.

    Back on topic;

    Hé doesn’t say that, the trackers are being blocked since 2022 since microsoft agreed to change the policy. Thats also in my original link

    I guess you could believe this was unrelated that this happened just after it became a scandal but i am not that naive.

    As a response to the scandal the ceo has the following to say.

    For non-search tracker blocking (eg in our browser), we block most third-party 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.

    Bleeping computers, who originally ran this story hit the nail on its head with

    “While DuckDuckGo has been transparent regarding the advertisement partnership with Microsoft, it is not clear why they did not disclose the allowing of Microsoft trackers until a security researcher discovered it.

    This revelation comes at the wrong time, as DuckDuckGo recently went after Google for their new 'Topics' and 'FLEDGE' tracking methods, saying, "Google says they're better for privacy, but the simple fact is tracking is tracking, no matter what you call it."

    Especially that last part is something ddg seemed to really want to forget cause after the ceo came with the following.

    "We have always been extremely careful to never promise anonymity when browsing, because that frankly isn’t possible given how quickly trackers change how they work to evade protections and the tools we currently offer. When most other browsers on the market talk about tracking protection, they are usually referring to 3rd-party cookie protection and fingerprinting protection, and our browsers for iOS, Android, and our new Mac beta, impose these restrictions on third-party tracking scripts, including those from Microsoft.

    Thats a huge leap in attitude from tracking is tracking..

    You are allowed to trust this guy, i see no reason why anyone would and i am gonna continue to get people to remain critical.

    On the browser, i legit didn’t know there where 2 products but i don’t think that matters regardless trusting this corporation.

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