Privacy focused search engine DuckDuckGo, has acquired the Duck.com domain from Internet giant Google.
According to NamePros, DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg confirmed that the ownership of Duck.com has been transferred from Google to DuckDuckGo, and will make it easier for people to use the company's search engine.
"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," DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg said.
How did Google come to be in possession of the Duck.com domain in the first place?
Google got to be in possession of the Duck.com domain when they acquired On2 technologies back then in 2010. On2 owned the Duck.com domain because it was previously called The Duck Corporation.
At that time, Google had no real use for the domain, but kept it and redirected the domain to Google page whenever someone tried to visit the domain. Back then, Google's ownership of the Duck.com domain was a souce of frustration for DuckDuckGo.
Whenever people tried visiting the domain to make searches (thinking that it belonged to DuckDuckGo), they would be redirected to rival search engine, Google. However, Google tried to clearup the confusion sometime in July this year by adding a DuckDuckGo link to the page.
Now the search giant has decided to handover the domain to DuckDuckGo, though details of the deal isn't open. We don't know how much DuckDuckGo purchased it, or if Google even sold it at all to DuckDuckGo (we suspect Google gave out the domain for free)
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