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Comment by pwned1 | Hacker News Reader

I've been a DDG user since your early days (you mailed me some DDG stickers when they were free). I was using DDG on every device and setting all of my family members to use the same on their devices.

You lost me when you started telling us that you were going to start deciding what is unacceptable "russian propaganda" without any transparency into what that means or who will be deciding. Completely antithetical to your anti-bubble mission. It pains me to not be a cheerleader for you anymore, but that was such a betrayal that I can't get past it.

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That is not what we are doing. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491296

On the search filter bubble, that is very still much what we do. To be clear, unlike some other search engines, we don’t alter search results based on someone’s previous search history. In fact, since we don’t track our users we don’t have access to search histories at all. Those other search engines show you results based on a data profile about you and your online activity (including your search history), and so can be slanted towards what they think you will click on the most based on this profiling. This effect is commonly known as the search filter bubble, but using DuckDuckGo can help you escape it. This does not mean, however, our search results are generally “unfiltered” because, for every search you make online, a search engine’s job is to filter millions of possible results down to a ranked order of just a handful.

So let me get this straight, you're against filter bubbles but are fine with filters for everyone?

Yes, because internet searching requires general filtration, while filter bubbles do their filtering based on a specific user's previous searches.

The former is necessary. The latter is... smelly.

Actually, i did not get his point but your simplification make so much sense. I'll try DDG again.

You missed my point. You are anti bubble, but you create the bubble for me. With no transparency into what you're doing.

Transparency is key. If the filtering is transparently disclosed on the results page with a note to the effect of "We've excluded results we consider to be Russian propaganda", then it all feels on the level and understandable, if not agreeable. Without such an upfront disclosure, it feels slimy and manipulative.

It's the difference between hiding results, and hiding that you are hiding results. (Yes, I know it was disclosed on twitter. It should be disclosed on each results page, like Google's "some results were omitted because DMCA etc" disclaimers. That is precedent for this sort of disclosure.)

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