Duck DuckGo, the world’s leading private search engine, concluded 2017 on a high note. The company’s profits jumped more than 20% from the year before, and the search engine expects to grow even more over the next few years, thanks to new features like local search and mobile searches. Duck DuckGo has also found success in expansion beyond its home country of the United States and its home continent of Europe into Asia, Africa, and South America over the past year or so.
Privacy Goes Mainstream
It’s been a big year for privacy. From the Cambridge Analytica scandal to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into effect, people are finally starting to pay attention to how their data is being used. And DuckDuckGo has been there to help them take control of their privacy. In the wake of GDPR and related laws going into effect across Europe, we’ve seen our usage skyrocket. We’re now one of the top 100 websites in Europe! With that success in mind, we have some exciting new plans for the future.
For starters, we’re building out a mobile app so you can protect your privacy no matter where you go or what device you use. But that’s just one part of our plan; stay tuned for more exciting announcements from us over the next few months.
Privacy Gains New Advocates
It’s been a big year for privacy. In the wake of high-profile data breaches and increasing public awareness of data collection practices, more and more people are looking for ways to keep their information safe. One company that has benefited from this trend is DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine.
As reported by TechCrunch, DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg said that 2018 was the company’s most profitable year to date. With a profit margin of about 15 per cent, the privately held startup made about $25 million in revenue last year, up from $21 million in 2017.
Negative Press Paints DDG Negatively
It’s been a tough year for privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo. The company has come under fire from the press for its handling of user data, and has been accused of being biased against certain political ideologies. However, despite the negative press, DDG has had a profitable year and is looking ahead to an even better one in 2022. We’ve accomplished a lot this year but we are just getting started, said CEO Gabriel Weinberg. Privacy is not only our mission, it’s what makes us different.
Growth Despite Negative Press
In spite of all the negative press surrounding big tech companies this year, DuckDuckGo had a very successful year. The search engine saw significant growth in both users and revenue. More than 5 million people visited DuckDuckGo every day in 2018, which is an increase of 37% from 2017. There was also an increase in desktop searches with an increase of 54%. However, it should be noted that Google still dominates with more than 2 billion queries per day.
The Challenges of 2019
2019 was a big year for DuckDuckGo. We faced many challenges, but we also had some big wins. One of our biggest challenges was continuing to grow our user base while also maintaining our strict privacy standards.
We’re proud to say that we accomplished both of those goals and more. In 2019, we saw a 50% increase in traffic from 2018. What’s more, this past year marked the first time we generated enough revenue to cover the company’s expenses. These results are promising as they indicate that people are increasingly choosing DuckDuckGo over other search engines when they want to maintain their privacy online.
The Challenges Of 2020 And Beyond
It’s been quite a year. Between a global pandemic, an economic recession, and civil unrest, it’s safe to say that 2020 has been a challenge for everyone. But despite all of the challenges we’ve faced this year, DuckDuckGo has had a successful year and is looking ahead to an even more promising future in 2022. The other day, I caught up with founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg to talk about his success story and how he sees the challenges of 2020 and beyond playing out. It’s not just DuckDuckGo, he said when I asked him what he was most concerned about in 2020.