[metastart]

Yes, you're basically right...but the problem isn't building your own search engine, it's in getting search ads privately as well as just being transparent and honest about how your service works -- none of which is true for DuckDuckGo sadly. Their business model is built on sending your personal data to bing when you click on ads on their search results page which link to Bing (moreover they say they never send your IP or personal information to a third-party, but presenting an ad on your search results without disclosing that the ad links to Bing may not "legally" violate that clause but it does in spirit). Ads are also localized so even if they aren't sending your IP address (which according to Bing they are supposed to be doing, but in their terms they claim not to), they're sending your location data. DuckDuckGo further refuses to clarify what data they do send (i.e. how accurate the location data is, what is it even) to retrieve search ads. They aren't transparent about how they work and their business model is fundamentally built on non-private search ads from Bing. It's not "true privacy" nor sincere to say you're not saving any user-related data when you're sending a lot of it to firms like Bing who do save it. The only search engines close to being truly private are epicsearch.in (part of the Epic Privacy Browser) and maybe some small, interesting efforts like private.sh, neither of which have search ads.

[squiggleblaz]

* Dealing with a proprietary cloud service is never going to offer privacy. If you want to be confident you have privacy, you need to use public, community efforts which you can become part.

* DuckDuckGo could be saying "We have a client from Kyrgyzstan, please give us an ad". Bing could be saying: Here is the heading, the body, and the URL. DDG could be dumping that in the page. Your privacy is not compromised.

* DuckDuckGo could be saying "We have a client from Kyrgyzstan and a client from Brazil and a client from Texas searching for 'plastic sponge bathtub' or 'green sponge bathtub' or 'green sponge beach'" in response to a search for "green sponge beach" from a Brazilian. Bing could be responding with several answers. DuckDuckGo would then send the relevant answer to the client.

* If you click on an ad, you have no privacy, end of story.