It has become known that DuckDuckGo and Microsoft had an agreement between them, according to which the web browser from the search engine allowed Microsoft to use trackers on third-party sites. They were not associated with a user’s advertising profile, but Microsoft advertising may track IP addresses and other private information for “accounting purposes”.

We remind that the browser from the DuckDuckGo search engine is considered private because it does not store any personal search bookmarks. It also has other privacy features – encryption, blocking third-party cookies and trackers.

“Tracker Radar automatically blocks hidden third-party trackers we can find lurking on websites you visit in DuckDuckGo, which stops the companies behind those trackers from collecting and selling your data,” said in a description of the browser.

However, digital security researcher Zach Edwards recently discovered that DuckDuckGo allows Microsoft trackers to run freely while Google and Facebook trackers are blocked. Subsequent tests have found that trackers associated with the bing.com and linkedin.com domains also work.

The researcher told about it on Twitter. In response to the thread, the head of DuckDuckGo confirmed that the company has an agreement with Microsoft whose trackers can work while searching. However, this only applies to the browser and does not affect the DuckDuckGo search engine.

DuckDuckGo also promised to remove this condition from the agreement with Microsoft and to be more transparent in the description of own products.