DuckDuckGo Responds To Its Major Backlash With The Launch Of Microsoft Blockers

DuckDuckGo is trying everything in its power to try and diffuse the situation that first began in June of this year. In case you’re not aware, a number of researchers saw how the company's browser on smartphones had given Microsoft the green signal to track users.

As shocking as that may sound, it was the truth. And seeing a firm of this stature allowing trackers to operate definitely had DuckDuckGo receiving negative publicity. Remember, researchers also noted how trackers by Facebook and tech giant Google had been blocked by the company, leaving so many questions on people’s minds.

Thanks to a blog post that was published this week, the firm’s CEO tried hard to clear the air and any form of confusion regarding the matter and how the company wished to backtrack and improve its position today.

The blog post highlighted some changes that the firm was busy making that would assist in redeeming itself. And this included a special mention of how it was now blocking all types of third parties from tracking user data scripts and would also be prevented from entering all apps seen across the browser.

This included both iOS and Android as well as any type of browser extensions like Firefox, Opera, Safari, Edge, and Chrome too.

DuckDuckGo is labeling the bold move as 3rd-Party Tracker Loading Protection that would go on blocking specified tracking scripts across various apps and firms and even third-party sites with no exceptions made whatsoever.

Gabriel Weinberg took out a moment to further highlight how the firm had been limited in terms of applying for protection against third parties that were linked with Microsoft. This had to do with a discrepancy in the policy linked to the company’s use of Bing which assisted in providing search results.

For now, after much backlash, the company says it has since then ditched the clauses outlined and is glad to reveal that it has introduced blockers for Microsoft as well. DuckDuckGo boldly affirms that they are not bound and will not be bound to such endeavors ever again.

Meanwhile, a separate email shared with media outlet TechRadar revealed how the firm feels the issue was not such a huge deal as much as it was blown way out of proportion.

The firm’s CEO mentioned that data scripts from Microsoft were never a part of their search engine or any of the applications that are affiliated with them, that don’t track users. Instead, it’s these web pages that end up adding such scripts to gain their own benefits. And in the end, the company is forced to deal with the aftermath, despite being never informed in the first place of what’s going on.

DuckDuckGo also refuted all claims that speak about how it had allowed Microsoft’s third parties to read data scripts and carry out tracking attempts through them was definitely not accurate.

The company concluded by mentioning that even before this update was generated, DuckDuckGo was already busy blocking most Microsoft parties from reading and loading users’ scripts.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World