Concerned about modern chatbots learning from your personal data? DuckDuckGo has introduced a free and “anonymous” solution for users to interact with popular chatbots without compromising their privacy.
The new service, DuckDuckGo AI Chat, ensures that all interactions between users and AI models, including OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 Turbo, Anthropic’s Claude 3 Haiku, and Meta’s Llama 3, remain private. “Just like searches on DuckDuckGo, all chats are completely anonymous and cannot be traced back to any individual,” the company stated in a blog post.
This was made possible through agreements with chatbot providers like OpenAI and Anthropic, preventing them from using DuckDuckGo users’ queries for AI training. Additionally, DuckDuckGo submits its own IP address with each chat inquiry to further protect user anonymity.
“DuckDuckGo does not save or store any chats,” the company clarified. “While the underlying model providers may temporarily store chats to generate responses and ensure functionality, all metadata is stripped, making it impossible to link chats to individuals.”
Chatbot providers have also committed to deleting any saved information within 30 days. When users try DuckDuckGo AI Chat, they can choose from four chatbot programs. DuckDuckGo will then display a privacy policy page, assuring users, “You retain all intellectual property rights in your Prompts and Outputs.” However, due to privacy controls, no chatbot can save a history of past conversations. This new feature is accessible via a chat tab next to the DuckDuckGo search box, and users can disable it in the settings panel.
Currently, DuckDuckGo AI Chat supports only the older GPT-3.5 Turbo model, not the latest GPT-4. However, the company is considering a “paid plan for access to higher daily usage limits and more advanced models.” Meanwhile, OpenAI’s ChatGPT allows users to opt out of AI model training.
