Canada's national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, had a piece this morning about a giant pension fund investing in DuckDuckGo. The Globe reported, in part:
"One of Canada’s largest pension funds is financing DuckDuckGo Inc., a rapidly growing search engine that positions itself as the “anti-Google†because it doesn’t track or store its users’ search results.
The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System is leading a US$10-million investment in the profitable U.S. firm, which handles about 24 million searches a day and generates more than US$25-million in annual revenue. DuckDuckGo has steadily grown following a rash of disclosures in recent years about how much personal data is harvested online and used by Google, Facebook and the U.S. National Security Agency.
It’s a small but symbolic investment by the pension giant. OMERS Ventures, the pension plan’s venture capital arm, recently stated it believes emerging blockchain technologies will empower a “decentralized web†where users will regain greater control over their own data, potentially disrupting the business models of internet giants that extensively collect and mine user information.
“We went out very aggressively†to pursue an investment in DuckDuckGo after monitoring the company’s development for years, said John Ruffolo, chief executive of OMERS Ventures. “We have been deeply concerned over the misuse of data, privacy and data sovereignty and we believe the public is starting to realize the cost of what they were giving up. [DuckDuckGo] is the leading company that’s figured out a different business model. … It’s proving that, in search, it’s possible to both make money and respect privacy and data sovereignty.â€"
Last edited by ryck; 08/21/18 05:16 PM.
