Google Finally Transfers Duck.com To DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a search engine focused on privacy that some of you might be familiar with. It has long been hoping to get its hands on the Duck.com domain that was owned by Google. Many people thought that visiting Duck.com would take them to DuckDuckGo but it redirected them to Google’s search engine instead. This was a source of frustration for DuckDuckGo but it would be happy now that Google has finally transferred the domain to it.

Google did try to do its bit to mitigate confusion for those who landed on its search engine through that domain. It added a DuckDuckGo link to the page which allowed people to click through to that search engine.

Major companies like Google own countless domains, many of which are common misspellings of their name. They also acquire and hold on to valuable domains that they feel might prove useful at some point in the future.

It got the ownership of Duck.com by virtue of its 2010 acquisition of On2 Technologies which used to be called The Duck Corporation. DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg has confirmed that the domain has been transferred to its company. Visiting Duck.com will now take you straight to its search engine. Weinberg and Google have both not confirmed if any money was paid for this transfer.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: Google