About DuckDuckGo ...

[Lummy]

Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and Chairman, famously said “Google’s policy on a lot of these things is to get right up to the creepy line, but not cross it.” But for most people, that line was crossed by Google, Facebook, and others long ago.

[Google and Facebook] ...have amassed huge data profiles on individuals, which can include interests, past purchases, search, browsing and location history, and much more. This personal data is stored indefinitely and used for invasive targeted advertising that can follow you around the Internet.

Alarmingly, Google now deploys hidden trackers on 76% of websites across the web to monitor your behavior and Facebook has hidden trackers on about 25% of websites, according to the Princeton Web Transparency & Accountability Project. It is likely that Google and/or Facebook are watching you on most sites you visit, in addition to tracking you when using their products.

Google also makes most of their money via this same type of keyword-based advertising that doesn’t require any search-history tracking.

So why do they track it all then? Because Google is not really a search company; they are an advertising company. On Google, your searches are tracked, mined, and packaged up into a data profile for advertisers to follow you around the Internet through intrusive and annoying ever-present banner ads, using Google’s massive ad networks, embedded across millions of sites and apps.

This is why if you search for something on Google, you may start seeing ads for it everywhere. Using the internet doesn’t have to feel like you’re being watched, listened to, and monitored ... more.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-re...swers/67404040

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo

There are other search engines that also say they don't track users. DDG says that its profitability comes from the fact that since key-word searches are the most attractive and profitable targets for advertising and has nothing to do with personal data, history, browsing habits and so forth, that's where most search engine profits are made anyway. If someone uses the search term "fishing", that alone is the best clue that that person might be interesting in fishing gear, boats, sporting goods and camping anyway. No personal information is required for this.

Google, by contrast, does give -- me, anyway -- a vague sense of being watched and maybe manipulated, and it has never well explained why. That is definitely the direction Google and Facebook are heading. It feels like communist China, and it is creepy.

[AZ Jim]

"Fishing" is actually:

Phishing - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

Phishing is the fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

[Lummy]

You're trying too hard.

[pjohns]

I typically use Bing for my go-to search engine.

[Captdon]

Google and Facebook ruined the internet.

[Peter1469]

I use DDG sometimes. I also use StartPage which uses its servers to search Google and you are not tracked.

[Lummy]

Google and Facebook ruined the internet.

The Quora article suggests that both Facebook and especially Google make little money in ad sales from most of their invasive tracking and monitoring. Therefore, their interest is in amassing private information is not monetary but for the purpose of manipulation and control -- power, in other words.