[ DuckDuckGo Privacy Weekly ] For Oct 1, 2020

• Your weather app is selling you out [gizmodo.com]
  "Weather apps deserve their own little corner in hell," Shoshana Wodinsky says of The Weather App's latest data-mining tactic: using 3rd party data focused on user shopping habits. Search "weather" at DuckDuckGo to receive updates without tracking.
• How HTTPS works [howhttps.works]
  An animal-filled comic about how HTTPS works & why it's essential to your privacy? Yes please!
  Side note: Our app/extension, with Smarter Encryption technology built in, enforces an encrypted HTTPS connection to websites when possible.
• DWF is no longer using Google Analytics [dazzlewhilefrazzled.com]
  This is the type of announcement we love to see. There are ethical alternatives (like Matomo Analytics) to Google Analytics. See also our list of privacy-friendly substitutes for living Google-free.
• YouTube unlawfully violates kids’ privacy, new $3.2B lawsuit claims [arstechnica.com]
  "The real price of YouTube ‘free’ services is kids addicted, influenced, & exploited. It’s already unlawful to data-mine children under 13. But Google won’t clean up its act until forced by the courts," says Cori Crider. Kate Cox explains the UK lawsuit.
• Strava app shows your info to nearby users unless this setting is disabled [bleepingcomputer.com]
  Using Strava (the running app)? Its "Flyby" feature has default visibility set to "Everyone", revealing what you look like and where you run to others. To make it private, go to Settings -> Privacy Controls -> Flyby -> No One.
• Ireland’s data watchdog slammed for letting adtech carry on ‘biggest breach of all time’ [techcrunch.com]
  “September 2020 marks two years since my formal complaint to the Irish Data Protection Commission about the ‘Real-Time Bidding’ data breach. This submission demonstrates the consequences of two years of failure to enforce,” says Dr Johnny Ryan, senior fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL).

Our thoughts

• As Predicted, Google’s Search Preference Menu Eliminates DuckDuckGo [spreadprivacy.com]
  The Q4 2020 results of Google’s search preference menu auction in the EU have just been released and, as we predicted, DuckDuckGo has been eliminated in most countries. Alternative search engines that put people and their privacy ahead of profits have been boxed out by Google due to their auction model, which we believe is fundamentally flawed. It incentivizes search engines to be worse on privacy, to increase ads, and to not donate to good causes, because, if they do those things, then they could afford to bid higher. The end result is less competition in the search market, making it harder for consumers to get simple privacy protection.

Proudly Private,



Dax the Duck
Mascot - DuckDuckGo

Follow us on Twitter
Learn about privacy on our blog