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1. Region can be changed in DuckDuckGo's settings, for more localized results -- by default it is set to "No region," so there is nothing localized in the results. 2. Bing is one of very very many sources, which are all remixed and combined, so the end result is completely different from Bing or any other upstream source (and most often, far better). 3. No, no, no. Nothing at all is sent to bing other than a plain request for an ad coming from DuckDuckGo servers with the query (for a page-relevant ad).
So, this sentence: "user agent (which I can assure you, it does get sent to Bing)" <-- Utterly untrue. Now, when you click on an ad, naturally your information is sent to both bing and whatever site the ad was for. That's to be expected, you are leaving DuckDuckGo at that point. This is also true when you click standard result links, of course. Now that that's out of the way, my personal opinion of result tailoring/bubbling is: it's good sometimes.
I love being in my cozy little bubble when searching for coding things, and even local businesses and such. I do NOT love bubbling when I am doing academic research. Why would I want to see content I already know and like? That invalidates the point of research, and even gives me a false idea about whatever I am researching. Bubbling and tracking, while good in some cases, should be optional in my opinion. |