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news Confirmed: Duck.com Transfers to DuckDuckGo

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Recently, Jamie Zoch (@Yofie) questioned whether search engine DuckDuckGo had acquired the Duck.com domain name from Google.

Search giant Google acquired the Duck.com domain name in 2010 with the acquisition of On2, a video codec company.

Today, DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg confirmed to me that the Duck.com domain name had been transferred to DuckDuckGo’s possession.

In a statement, Gabriel said:
We’re pleased Google has chosen to transfer ownership of Duck.com to DuckDuckGo. Having Duck.com will make it easier for people to use DuckDuckGo.

The Duck.com domain name has now started forwarding to DuckDuckGo.com.

Gabriel did not mention any purchase, simply stating that Google had chosen to transfer ownership of the domain to his company.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
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It is pretty great.

DuckDuckGo can get a shorter domain.

Duck also has a double-meaning, i.e. don't be noticed.

So, people can "Duck" instead of "Google". Of course it sounds a little funny if you "Just Duck It".
 
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There may be surprising story hidden under the duckdesk.
Who knows, tomorrow we all listen that google has acquired duckduckgo.com........Just a thought...O_o
 
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I would immediately rebrand to duck.com and forward duckduckgo to duck.com

While I was at it I would drop the ridiculous logo and use something that better indicates sidestepping, offering choice, or ducking out of a service. In other words some sort of a privacy logo.

Good luck DuckDuckGo (y)
 
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duck.com will my favor searchengine website
 
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The story of Microsoft floating a significant loan to Apple in order to keep Apple solvent in the late '90's is well-known. Microsoft didn't do so out of altruistic impulse; they did so to decrease the odds they'd be the target of anti-trust legislation. I'm sure the c-suite at Google is very aware of that history lesson, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more likely anti-trust target than Google. Alphabet was a proactive effort to stay ahead of that curve. This is another. It's also why I suspect they either gifted Duckduckgo the domain, or sold it at a modest price. Even if they squeezed Duckduckgo for every penny they could and maximized the duck.com sale price, that's a penny in the couch for Google, and of insignificant benefit, compared to the license to print money that they maintain as a monolith.
 
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Well, it's about time. Always wondered when DDG would get themselves a shorter domain. Now we just need Gabriel to start using it as primary, rather than the forwarder. He would have to rebrand, but well worth it imo.
How is it Google just "nicely" handed over an ultra-premium domain to one of its competitors..hmm.
 
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How is it Google just "nicely" handed over an ultra-premium domain to one of its competitors..hmm.
Thats the million dollar question. Being in the IT business and working for one of the big tech firms I can say without hesitation that these companies rarely due much to help out one another. (wish I could go into more detail)........... When they do "help" it must be questioned.
 
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The story of Microsoft floating a significant loan to Apple in order to keep Apple solvent in the late '90's is well-known. Microsoft didn't do so out of altruistic impulse; they did so to decrease the odds they'd be the target of anti-trust legislation. I'm sure the c-suite at Google is very aware of that history lesson, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more likely anti-trust target than Google. Alphabet was a proactive effort to stay ahead of that curve. This is another. It's also why I suspect they either gifted Duckduckgo the domain, or sold it at a modest price. Even if they squeezed Duckduckgo for every penny they could and maximized the duck.com sale price, that's a penny in the couch for Google, and of insignificant benefit, compared to the license to print money that they maintain as a monolith.

You might be right about the anti trust angle. I can't imagine Google giving up a good asset to a competitor for any other reason.

Duck.com can actually compete with Google. Imagine the marketing possibilities of "the Duck" or "duck it".

...and it doesn't sound stupid, like Bing.
 
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You might be right about the anti trust angle. I can't imagine Google giving up a good asset to a competitor for any other reason.

Duck.com can actually compete with Google. Imagine the marketing possibilities of "the Duck" or "duck it".

...and it doesn't sound stupid, like Bing.
j u s t b i n g i t
 
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I hope duckduckgo makes an email service out of it as well, I'd love to have an @duck.com
 
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I hope duckduckgo makes an email service out of it as well, I'd love to have an @duck.com
Haha! Something inbetween fuck and dick.
 
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The story of Microsoft floating a significant loan to Apple in order to keep Apple solvent in the late '90's is well-known. Microsoft didn't do so out of altruistic impulse; they did so to decrease the odds they'd be the target of anti-trust legislation. I'm sure the c-suite at Google is very aware of that history lesson, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more likely anti-trust target than Google. Alphabet was a proactive effort to stay ahead of that curve. This is another. It's also why I suspect they either gifted Duckduckgo the domain, or sold it at a modest price. Even if they squeezed Duckduckgo for every penny they could and maximized the duck.com sale price, that's a penny in the couch for Google, and of insignificant benefit, compared to the license to print money that they maintain as a monolith.
This. Very good for google if they can point to a modestly successful competitor besides bing. It's been quite a while since 'do no evil' guided Google. I still use and like many of their products, but I dont believe for a second that this was lending a hand.
 
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Interesting history... Some years ago Gabriel created "The Parked Domains Project", along with a firefox add-on, at his now-defunct ivegotafang (.com). [1] where he curated a list of 50+ million parked domains. He coded his search engine to explicitly avoid all of those parked domains. [2]

While I fully understand, and agree, with his stance on privacy these days, where was the respect for parked domain owners when he crawled these domains and blacklisted them and refused to display them in his search engine results? That rubbed me the wrong way. So if you were into parking back then, which many of us were, people who used his search engine never saw your ads and you likely lost some revenue due to his actions. Have no idea why he had this thing against parked domains but he created an entire project around it.

I agree with AuctionBio - there is probably more to this story... Its perplexing, though, why a privacy activist would get involved with Google unless it was purely just a domain sale. Time will tell.
 
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Has anyone else noticed the change in results when a parked domain is entered into the ddg search box? I started noticing a change about 3 or so weeks ago...me thinks something is afoot in search engine sandbox.
 
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now it will be easier to remeber for new users and this searchengine is great for my use.
 
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Wow! :xf.eek:

Didn’t expect this. I can’t wait for a follow-up on this one!
 
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Did he also make an offer to the registry for .DUCK domain names ? The holder is Johnson Shareholdings, Inc. and has only 8 domains created? Note that it is a Trademark. More here: nic.duck
.duck ?
duck.duck

 
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Since beginning of this year been using ddg more often, and it's been fairly okay, and I have always wished for a shorter name. But this all looks fishy, competitor selling names to each other don't happen regular and from Google of all people... .
Anyway, it's all good. Let's see how this goes
 
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Hello Google, give them a new logo as well.
 
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Interesting history... Some years ago Gabriel created "The Parked Domains Project", along with a firefox add-on, at his now-defunct ivegotafang (.com). [1] where he curated a list of 50+ million parked domains. He coded his search engine to explicitly avoid all of those parked domains. [2]

While I fully understand, and agree, with his stance on privacy these days, where was the respect for parked domain owners when he crawled these domains and blacklisted them and refused to display them in his search engine results?
I don't think people using search engines are interested in parking pages or pages with poor or no contents.
 
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A recent TechCrunch article mentions and links to this thread on Namepros.:xf.smile:....According to the article they speculate this may have to do with the anti competitive allegations directed to Google.... . Is this Google trying to save face? .....hmmmmm
 
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