DuckDuckGo Unbanned in India after a Ban on July 1st
DuckDuckGo is an internet search engine that focuses on protecting searchers’ privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of custom search results. DuckDuckGo distinguishes apart from other search engines by not profiling its users and giving all users the same search results for a given search word. The ban on DuckDuckGo might be an accidental one as a result of the 59 Chinese applications that were banned by the Indian Government as a result of the border skirmishes with the Chinese army. DuckDuckGo isn’t Chinese, it is a company from Pennsylvania, USA.
— DuckDuckGo (@DuckDuckGo) July 1, 2020 After the users reported the block to DuckDuckGo, the company prompted to write letters to the Indian Government and the Indian ISP’s to explain the reason for the block. The company had recommended using the 1.1.1.1 DNS for using the search engine. After some research users found a way out of the ban as the ISP’s were using their own DNS’s as a checkpoint and when one switched to a third party one, they could use the search engine again. Although some ISPs are currently removing their blocks, the situation is still very uncertain. Most people seem to have been impacted by the ban, though others claim that DuckDuckGo remained within control. Some providers have attached a warning that the Indian Telecommunications Department has blocked the website, while others are merely sending out failed DNS lookup errors.
