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DDG is attacking the weakness in their strength, a pretty classic technique for a lower tier player to attack the leader.

By redefining privacy as "we don't know you" instead of "we keep your stuff secure" their doing a clausewitz style offensive.

There's limitations to this technique and that's what they keep hitting. They're not going vertical on their beachhead, so yeah, this is what happens.

Eh, whatever, it's not like I work there so best of luck to them.



Please don't redefine privacy as "we know everything about you and we're going to exploit that information for profit but won't give it to anyone else except governments whatever their purpose may be because they only ever use it for a good cause." That's not what it is.


My (and your) personal definition isn't at play here.

When companies offer you privacy they usually mean privacy from others, not from the company itself.

This is the hard reality of what these companies mean when they use the word privacy.


Okay, but "hard reality" isn't the same as "the newbie is redefining things".


Huh? I don't understand your point here. I've been doing business building for 20 years, I hope I'm not that green.

This is a business purposing claim and that's it.


Really? Does my bank inspect the contents of my safe deposit box and auction off that info for ads?


That's a ridiculously unprofitable business model, of course they don't but almost entirely because that idea is unsound and not at all practical.

When a hotel offers privacy for instance, they aren't saying they'll wear a blindfold to check you in - their data retention policy is identical - they're talking about privacy from others.

When a plane offers privacy in first class, they're not saying they'll shred your fight record after landing, it's privacy from others.

When uber is offering privacy, they're not saying you can anonymously book and crypto pay the amount, no, it's privacy from others - they know the same amount about you as any other user

I have a friend here in LA that does privacy centric medical services (hiv, drug rehab). The target demo is celebrities who are shying away from paparazzis and gossip columnists. He still has the customer list however


They 100% sell your transaction information, as does Visa and MasterCard. Google buys that, as do Amazon and Facebook and many other companies.


> By redefining privacy as "we don't know you" instead of "we keep your stuff secure" their doing a clausewitz style offensive.

You mean they know the difference between privacy and security?


I'm actually not sure I see the difference here when your information and access to you are the only things a website can secure at all. If you're selling my information, or access to me, that's by definition terrible privacy.

Granted this isn't the definition of "privacy" that corporations will use, but that's hardly an accident.


Privacy is "we don't know you".




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