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CNBC – Google vs. DuckDuck Go

  |   By Polling+ Staff

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 12: (L-R) Senior privacy counsel for Google, Inc. Will DeVries, chairman of Californians for Consumer Privacy Alastair MacTaggart, director of security policy and global privacy officer for Intel David Hoffman, CEO and founder of DuckDuckGo Gabriel Weinberg, and policy lead for Mapbox Tom Lee testify during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee March 12, 2019 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The committee held a hearing on "GDPR (EU General Data Protection Regulation) & CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act): Opt-ins, Consumer Control, and the Impact on Competition and Innovation." (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

And at CNBC? A look inside the world of private internet search engines.

The CNBC headline: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/21/duckduckgo-ceo-testifies-google-contracts-limited-its-search-distribution.html

Google’s contracts with browser makers blocked us from distribution, says rival search engine DuckDuckGo

The story reports:

Google’s exclusive contracts proved to be an “obstacle” for DuckDuckGo in pitching browsers on becoming the default search engine for their private browsing modes, DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg testified in federal court on Thursday.

DuckDuckGo, known for its privacy-centric search engine that rivals Google’s, had at some point pitched its search engine to be the default in private browsing modes of other browsers, Weinberg testified in Washington, D.C., District Court.

Google is facing allegations from the Department of Justice and a coalition of state attorneys general that it violated antitrust law through the use of exclusionary contracts to be the default search engine on browsers like Apple’s Safari and on phones that use Google’s Android operating system.

“We thought it was a great pitch to browsers, honestly,” Weinberg said during questioning by an attorney for the Justice Department.

DuckDuckGo’s own research has found that many consumers aren’t aware that private browsing modes do not provide as much tracking protection as they would expect. Weinberg said the company presented that information to browser makers, showing that private browsing can mislead consumers, offering DuckDuckGo as a solution to that problem.”

There’s more here. It is the old story of two competitors in the same business having at one another. Ford versus Chevy. Campbell’s versus Heinz. Post cereal versus General Foods.

But added in here is the 21st century twist: 2 Big Tech/ High Tech giants tangle.

Get the popcorn.