HACKER Q&A
📣 rubidium

Duckduckgo Is Advertising?


Saw a large billboard in Indiana advertising for DuckDuckGo search engine. Maybe somebody here can help me understand their business model and where the budget comes from?


  👤 badRNG Accepted Answer ✓
Ad revenue. Go do a DDG search. You'll notice off to the side there is an ad conspicuously tagged as such. Click that, and DDG makes a little bit of money. From what I understand, their ads are only related to the content of the current search.

👤 sebst
Seems as if billboard ads work good for DDG. The first one in 2011 was placed in San Francisco.

https://www.wired.com/2011/01/duckduckgo-google-privacy/

I’m not sure what this tells about stereotypes of Pennsylvania, San Francisco, the tech industry and billboards... ;)


👤 thesmileyone

👤 mnoorani
From the source, how DuckDuckGo generates revenue: https://help.duckduckgo.com/company/advertising-and-affiliat...

👤 Nextgrid
Saw that as well in London. Don't mind it too much to be honest.

👤 s1t5
Even if they are advertising, I would question the profitability of buying billboard space in Indiana for a privacy focused search company.

👤 ttonkytonk
They're advertising (underwriting?) on NPR because I just heard it this morning.

👤 mrlonglong
The curse of MBAs strikes back!