China has started blocking access to DuckDuckGo

The search engine known for protecting users’ privacy has joined the list of censored sites

DuckDuckGo, an Internet search engine that distinguishes itself by not tracking its users, has joined the list of websites that are being censored by the Chinese authorities.

The search engine’s creator and CEO, Gabriel Weinberg, reported on 21 September that Chinese Internet users have been unable to access his website since the start of the month.

DuckDuckGo has no servers inside China and does not filter its results as required by the Great Firewall of China, the Internet censorship system that the government created in 2003 to regulate access to foreign websites.

Reporters Without Borders deplores this violation of the right to information and the government’s heavy-handed regulation of the online content available in China. This latest act of censorship, designed to step up surveillance of Internet users and prevent democratic debate, must stop at once.

As it does not track users and respects the confidentiality of their searches, use of DuckDuckGo has soared since Edward Snowden exposed the extent to which the US intelligence agencies gather Internet users’ private data.

Exactly why China suddenly started blocking DuckDuckGo is not clear. But it seems that its anonymity policy and Apple’s recent decision to make it the default search engine in its latest version of iOS scared the censorship and propaganda officials responsible for “public security.”

Google and GoDaddy are among the many other sites that are censored in China.

Ranked 175th out of 180 countries in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, China has one of the world’s most sophisticated cyber-security systems.