Noble’s article primarily focuses on Google’s search engine, which, as it is considered the gold standard of web searching, makes sense. When she began to discuss the influence of advertising and consumer data mining, however, I started to wonder whether search engines that don’t data mine have similar issues. DuckDuckGo is another search engine that, like Google, uses web crawlers to collect relevant items for the user. Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo does not collect any information about its consumers in order to track privacy. Search history, similar searches, and clicks on affiliate links are all intentionally ignored. Noble argues that the influence of advertisers contributes to the frequency of misogynist and racist results during searches, so by that logic, DuckDuckGo should have fewer racist and misogynist searches than Google. Out of curiosity, I searched the term “black girls” on DuckDuckGo. Eight of the ten results were items like the Black Girls Code website and information about the Black Girls Rock concert series. The ninth result was a YouTube video with candid clips of Black girls on a beach in Haiti, which did seem objectifying though I did not watch the whole thing through, and the tenth was porn. DuckDuckGo is generally considered a more ethical engine than Google because it protects users’ privacy. Are they truly more ethical if their results are sorted by a similar algorithm?
Upon further research, I found that DuckDuckGo’s algorithm is powered by Yahoo and Bing, which both do collect user data to provide targeted advertising and results. The only difference between using Bing and using DuckDuckGo is that the end-user’s data is untouched. Even though the results aren’t targeted, it seems that the algorithm is still influenced by advertisers who pay Yahoo and Bing for more traffic. The search for an ethical general-knowledge search engine continues.