[yegg]

I occasionally get trolled around my previous company, Opobox, an early social networking company that I ran from 2003-2006. As far as I can tell, the trolling theme is that since I ever was associated with any kind of social networking company, that somehow taints me/DuckDuckGo. It's purpose was to help reunite old friends and classmates, and it actually helped develop my privacy views and practices for what became DuckDuckGo.

For example we did what I think were some innovative things:

--We collected the minimum amount of information possible.

--Allowed people to automatically remove all their minimal information permanently with one click or email.

--Actually charged money as a business model instead of using advertising.

--Never worked with any third-parties in terms of data targeting (and didn't need to since that wasn't our business model).

Of course, these also made the company ultimately not able to compete in the space, which was completely subsumed by Facebook.

I took these privacy ideas to DuckDuckGo, though, and realized in the case of Web search the minimum amount of information needed is actually zero. Hence, our privacy policy.

[lakechfoma]

That's a good history and makes a lot of sense. Thanks for being active in the community and for everything that DDG does!

[davidcuddeback]

> --Actually charged money as a business model instead of using advertising.

Have you considered charging for premium DDG features? IOW, what's the long-term viability of DDG?

[yegg]

Unfortunately, like with social networking, there is an established freeness in the market, and so it is hard to charge people en masse. Fortunately for web search though, you can make plenty of money without tracking people, and so we've been profitable since 2014 and have no long-term viability issues.

[quadrangle]

w00t!! Is there some great public link that would be best to use in contacting the rare honorable advertiser who might advertise with DDG?

I'm thinking along the lines of a conversation about why it's unethical to feed Google / FB etc. given their fundamentally invasive business models and someone asks what to do otherwise, so I send them a great intro link that explains both that advertising on DDG is good ROI and more ethical…

[davidcuddeback]

Fantastic! Glad to hear that you're profitable. :)

FWIW, I would pay to disable ads.

[acct1771]

I apologize for disappearing after my "trolling", but it is an important inquiry, so I hope you're not too offended.

What user information was turned over in the buyout?

That seems like a pretty important piece to leave out, and I'm surprised nobody else asked.

[neospice]

Thanks for shedding some light! Your Social Networking ideas sound innovative indeed and it sucks that it couldn't pan out to be something viable.

Maybe it was ahead of its time.