DuckDuckGo tries to explain why its browsers won't block Microsoft ad trackers

DuckDuckGo tries to explain why its browsers won't block Microsoft ad trackers

DuckDuckGo promises privacy to users of its Android, iOS browsers, and macOS browsers – yet it allows certain data to flow from third-party websites to Microsoft-owned services.


Security researcher Zach Edwards recently conducted an audit of DuckDuckGo's mobile browsers and found that, contrary to expectations, they do not block Meta's Workplace domain, for example, from sending information to Microsoft's Bing and LinkedIn domains. Specifically, DuckDuckGo's software didn't stop Microsoft's trackers on the Workplace page from blabbing information about the user to Bing and LinkedIn for tailored advertising purposes. Other trackers, such as Google's, are blocked.


"I tested the DuckDuckGo so-called private browser for both iOS and Android, yet neither version blocked data transfers to Microsoft's Linkedin + Bing ads while viewing Facebook's workplace[.]com homepage," Edwards explained in a Twitter thread.

The situation is the same for DuckDuckGo's macOS browser, a company spokesperson confirmed.

Responding to Edwards, DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg emphasized its browsers do not allow ad-tracking data to flow to DuckDuckGo's Microsoft Bing-powered search engine, which last year faced separate criticism for inheriting Redmond's censorship of Tiananmen Square imagery.


According to Weinberg, users of DuckDuckGo Search who see ads delivered through Microsoft Advertising do not provide data when those ads are loaded on the page. If a user clicks on an ad, Microsoft Advertising gets the user's IP address and user-agent string for ad attribution and billing, as DuckDuckGo explains on its website.

With regard to the company's browsers, he said DuckDuckGo blocks Microsoft third-party cookies (used for ad ..

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