NSA leak spurs traffic on lesser-known private search engine

If the recent NSA leaks revealed by the press has you worried, you are not alone.  In fact, a little talked about private search engine called ‘DuckDuckGo’ has enjoyed sudden increase in traffic and it appears to be attributed to the recent storm of privacy concerns.

Since the PRISM program leak many security firms have noted a higher demand with customers wanting better security on-line and away from prying eyes. The past few days has seen a swarm of on-line technology, how-to sites suggesting ways in which a person can better secure their searches, emails and files.  Naturally most all of them point to using a virtual private network (VPN) with strong encyption and most suggest quitting the most popular sites such as Google or Ping.

DuckDuckGo has come up as a topic on many Internet how-to guides simply for the fact that nothing by the search engine is stored other than anonymous data that is not traced to any particular user

DuckDuckGo is a private search engine that does not track a particular user’s search.  The site is boasting a sudden increase in traffic and growing by the day. According to a recent report, DuckDuckGo made a new record of 2.35 million direct searches since this past Wednesday, June 12th, which was a 26% increase over the previous week.

These number directly coincide with the recently leaked NSA documents showing how nine of the most popular technology-based firms such as Google and Microsoft were connected to the NSA intelligence gathering.

Gabriel Weinberg, who launched the alternative search engine in 2008, said that the recent increase in user searches only proves that people are genuinely searching for better security and privacy on the Internet. Weinberg iterated that people would continue to aggressively search out alternative search methods.

The key feature with DuckDuckGo is that it never tracks a user and search results are plain and exactly what the person is searching for.  Ironically and much like Google, the alternative search engine generates revenue through contextual advertisements.