A start-up taking on Google in search is much like a raft taking on a cruise ship as a vacation option. But Weinberg is not delusional. With money lining his pockets from selling a start-up for $10 million, Weinberg bet there was a place in the market for a product capitalizing on users’ emerging annoyances with Google — its search results gamed by marketers; its pages cluttered with ads; every query tracked, logged and personalized to the point of creepiness

Google still is bigger and better than any other search engine on this planet. But as the author of this article cleverly points out, Google is not flawless. Paul Graham said that start-ups don’t reinvent the wheel, they nail the experience, they make X “done right”. Google was originally doing search right. Now Google is the giant and it needs disruption. 

Enters DuckDuckGo:

So: DuckDuckGo does not track users. It doesn’t generate search results based on a user’s previous interests, potentially filtering out relevant information. It is not cluttered with ads. In many ways, DuckDuckGo is an homage the original Google — a pure search engine — and its use is soaring, with searches up from 10 million a month in October 2011 to 45 million this past October. The growth has attracted attention and cash from Union Square Ventures, the venture capital firm behind Twitter. 

The article is a good read and the guys behind it are solid. Will it be enough to kill Google? Perhaps but change the name please.