DuckDuckGo burned a truckload of goodwill with me today
Their DDG-branded web browser for Android has a feature which [it doesn't matter what it does by design], but as a side effect it sends every URL you visited to DuckDuckGo's servers. That is the single worst thing they could do as a "privacy" focused web browser.
When this was pointed out to them, they doubled down. For a year. It took an HN front page (in the comments section they doubled down *again*) and 10 hours of arguing with them before the CEO stepped in and agreed to remove the feature.
@sir
I'm just saying laziness may have been the biggest motivator for them here.
@zachdecook and I'm saying that does not make it better in the slightest. Stop making up excuses for them
@zachdecook @sir "laziness" is never a motivator for a corporation. The single motivator is the bottom line. The data was profitable and someone made a calculation that the breach of privacy policy is not actionable unless the victims can prove that the servers logged or made use of the data.
@sir @zachdecook the only thing that motivated DDG in the end was that there was a surge in bad PR that threatened their profits, so it suddenly made business sense to fix the "bug".
@zachdecook that excuse is not even a little bit valid in this situation