DuckDuckGo has had a banner year, serving a total of more then 10 billion search queries at the end of 2016, and reaching a milestone of 14 million searches in a single day in January 2017.
With its search engine business being firmly on the rise, DuckDuckGo tells Wired it has plans to be more than just that. The 7-year-old company with a 35-person team aspires to grow its privacy solutions beyond search.
Founder Gabriel Weinberg says:
”We’re thinking of what else we can do to expand the proposition and give people more of a holistic privacy solution. We haven’t made any total move but it’s where we’re heading; we’re thinking more generally how can we do more to protect your privacy when you’re browsing around the web.”
Although Weinberg is vague on what exactly that means, he has ruled out the possibility of an e-mail service. Rather, he’s looking into ways to keep users’ information secure as they click off DuckDuckGo and visit other sites on the web.
“Like when you click off the search engine and you’re taken to somewhere else on the web… If we can make that experience more private for you, that’s what we’re thinking of”.
Until then, the company will continue to focus on its core search capabilities. Specifically, it wants to improve its ability to deliver instant answers similar to how Google does when you ask it a question.
Admittedly, the company faces an awareness problem. Despite being available on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox as a default search engine option, many searchers still do not know it exists. Its growth thus far can be mainly attributed to the those who are looking for an alternative to being tracked online.
As the founder puts it:
”For the majority of people, I think they’re just looking for simple ways to be tracked less online”.
