Bing contract prohibits DuckDuckGo from completely blocking Microsoft tracking
This title is very misleading (and really should be changed).<p>This is not about search. To be clear, when you load our search results, you are completely anonymous, including ads. For ads, we actually worked with Microsoft to make ad clicks privacy protected as well. From our public ads page, &quot;Microsoft Advertising does not associate your ad-click behavior with a user profile.&quot; This page is linked to next to every Microsoft ad that is served on our search engine (duckduckgo.com). <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;help.duckduckgo.com&#x2F;company&#x2F;ads-by-microsoft-on-duckduckgo-private-search&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;help.duckduckgo.com&#x2F;company&#x2F;ads-by-microsoft-on-duck...</a>.<p>In all our browsing apps (iOS&#x2F;Android&#x2F;Mac) we also block third-party cookies, including those from Microsoft-owned properties like LinkedIn and Bing. That is, the privacy thing most people talk about on the web (blocking 3rd party cookies) applies here to MSFT. We also have a lot of other web protections that also apply to MSFT-owned properties as well, e.g.,  GPC, first-party cookie expiration, fingerprinting protection, referrer header trimming, cookie consent handling, fire button data clearing, etc.<p>This is just about non-DuckDuckGo and non-Microsoft sites in our browsers, where our search syndication agreement currently prevents us from stopping Microsoft-owned scripts from loading, though we can still apply our browser&#x27;s protections post-load (like 3rd party cookie blocking and others mentioned above, and do). We&#x27;ve also been tirelessly working behind the scenes to change this limited restriction. I also understand this is confusing because it is a search syndication contract that is preventing us from doing a non-search thing. That&#x27;s because our product is a bundle of multiple privacy protections, and this is a distribution requirement imposed on us as part of the search syndication agreement. Our syndication agreement also has broad confidentially provisions and the requirement documents themselves are explicitly marked confidential.<p>Taking a step back, I know our product is not perfect and will never be. We face many constraints: platform constraints, contractual constraints (like in this case), breakage constraints, and the evolving tracking arms race. Holistically though I believe it is the best thing out there for mainstream users who want simple privacy protection without breaking things, and that is our product vision.<p>Overall our app is multi-pronged privacy protection in one package (private search, web protection, HTTPS upgrading, email protection, app tracking protection for Android, and more to come), being careful (and putting in a lot of effort) to not break things while still offering protections -- an &quot;easy button&quot; for privacy. And we constantly work to improve its capabilities and will continue to do so, including in this case. For example, we&#x27;ve recently been adding bespoke third-party protections for Google and Facebook, like Google AMP&#x2F;Topics&#x2F;FLEDGE protection and Facebook embedded content protection.