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With the latest Wikileaks news, it makes some people wonder if we all are potential "April" surveillance subjects.

Humans expect privacy and shudder at the thought of government agents surreptitiously watching them through device cameras. Do animals like giraffes, elephants, monkeys and dogs deserve privacy, too? Does it matter, and do they really care if we humans look on at their day-to-day lives?

Background from the article:

"April, a 15-year-old reticulated giraffe who lives at Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, N.Y., is expecting a calf.

Since late February, when her caretakers made available on YouTube a livestream camera feed from inside her stall, April has been viewed many millions of times. Her fame is international: The BBC deemed the birth "the most anticipated since Prince George made his appearance in 2013."

Per the Daily Mail:

"Prosecutors have insisted they will not go easy on Dani Mathers, the former Playboy playmate who took a photo of a naked, 70-year-old woman in a gym and posted it on Snapchat.

The model has asked Los Angeles City Attorneys not to send her to jail, saying she will undergo counseling and anti-bullying courses instead.

She also said that she would go around to schools and talk about how harmful bullying is.

But prosecutors scoffed at her attempts at mercy, claiming that she never apologized to the victim in person, TMZ reported.

If convicted, she faces up to six months in jail for invasion of privacy, and a $1,000 fine."

"While surfing on Facebook, Google, Amazon, iTunes or on most Web sites, most people don’t realize the traces of information they leave behind.... The purpose of this article is to alert you to this risk...and to help you find ways to protect your privacy as you surf the Internet."

Author Daniel Dubois includes a list of practical tools, along with links to his recommendations.

Thank you for using StartPage.com for search privacy! I will pass along your suggestion to our tech team. :-)

Because many users are concerned about using US services and servers, we give StartPage and Ixquick users the option to use servers outside the US.

See: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic...

We might also redirect to EU servers automatically in some cases. See: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic...

Hi. Do you mean Ixquick.eu? Ixquick.eu is sister to StartPage that delivers metasearch results, but without Google or Yahoo search results. (It used to deliver Yahoo results, too.)

We ended our contract with Yahoo for Ixquick.eu because they were reported to be working with the US government to access user information See: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/technology/startpage-to-dr...

Hi Kriro. For image search, DuckDuckGo may be a hair faster because it uses Amazon AWS servers. But other searches should be about the same speed.

Please contact us if you see this happening so we can address it.

A recent article did a speed comparison test of StartPage vs. DuckDuckGo, along with other comparisons. See: http://securityspread.com/2016/10/24/duckduckgo-startpage-20...

There are good hackers that will likely save our world from disaster.

Then there are bad hackers out there with various motives, often monetary. Some of them make a living or get a thrill by propagating viruses.

You will notice there are companies selling software to remove viruses, like the supposed DuckDuckGo virus, for example: http://www.2-spyware.com/remove-duckduckgo.html

There are virus creators out there that take the names of legitimate companies like DuckDuckGo and StartPage, likely to trick people for their own reasons.

Let me emphasize again that DuckDuckGo and StartPage are legitimate search engines, and the reported viruses that try to benefit from respected industry names like these have nothing to do with the legitimate search services.

Hi veenified. StartPage offers actual Google search results in privacy. Google never sees you and neither do we.

We never collect personal information about our users so you break free from the "filter bubble." See: https://dontbubble.me/

Plus, we offer a free proxy with every search result so you can also view web results pages in privacy.

DuckDuckGo is also a solid search engine. We are glad you use private search, whether you use StartPage.com or another option. If we all start taking small steps to protect our privacy, we can reform the "surveillance economy"!

Thank you for using private search, no matter which private search engine you use!

DuckDuckGo uses Amazon web servers so they may be just a hair bit faster for image search according to a recent comparison article. See: http://securityspread.com/2016/10/24/duckduckgo-startpage-20...

You are right to be wary, eptcyka. We know trust is an important issue, so we back up our privacy promises with 3rd party audits. We are the only private search engine to do that.

Hi greglindahl. StartPage has a contract with Google that allows us to use their official "Syndicated Web Search" feed. We pay them to get those results.

Hi nitrogen. They may have also experienced the reported DuckDuckGo Browser Hijacker see: https://duck.co/forum/thread/24346/what-is-the-duckduckgo-br.... Both are viruses that have nothing to do with the legitimate search engines.

Hope this helps!

Per Warc:

A survey of 2,500 consumers by IDC looked at key areas of privacy concern for consumers across four vertical industries (Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail, and Government). This found that 84% of respondents were concerned about the security of their personally identifiable information, and seven in ten are more worried today than they were two years ago.

One possible sign of change is the growing popularity of privacy-focused search engines like DuckDuckGo and StartPage.com, Google alternatives that promise not to track their users.