Search engine DuckDuckGo is exponentially growing after revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden, according to CEO Gabe Weinberg in an interview with CNBC. The search engine targets privacy aware users and doesn't store IP addresses or other personal information, nor does it make profiles of its users.
Directly after the revelations of the surveillance practices of the NSA, searches on DuckDuckGo increased with 33%. Meanwhile traffic has grown with 600% and the search engine serves 3 billion search queries a year. Both Apple and Mozilla offer the search engine as an option in their browsers.
Although DuckDuckGo doesn't track its users, the search engine it profitable. "It's a fairy tale that you need to track users to generate revenue with a search engine", according to Weinberg.
DuckDuckGo makes use of advertisements based on search queries. Users searching for a car will be presented with an advertisement of a car. "It's that simple", Weinberg said.
