New Search Engine DuckDuckGo Takes on Google

October 13, 2011 4:47 PM EDT

That bar of search possibility from Google that world has come to know and use as an everyday part of life is getting a challenge from another little-known search engine which aims to take on the global leader.

DuckDuckGo promises speedy search results with less spam and clutter than other competitors including Google.

Founded by Gabriel Weinberg, an MIT graduate who previously sold one company for $10 million, DuckDuckGo (www.duckduckgo.com) uses "real authorities to curate search results," according to Weinberg, in an interview with BusinessInsider. Union Square Ventures announced today in a blog post that it invested in DuckDuckGo, along with a number of angel investors.

Union Square Ventures partner Brad Burnham acknowledges that Google, which controls a 66 percent search engine marketshare, is a strong competitor but he believes DuckDuckGo can make a successful go with its search engine business.

"We invested in DuckDuckGo because we became convinced that it was not only possible to change the basis of competition in search, it was time to do it," Burnham said on USV's blog.

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He thinks Weinberg can successfully take on Google by making a correlation to Microsoft's one-time dominance in the PC and tech industry.

"Two things happened that fundamentally changed the game: a shift in venue and a shift in business model. The venue moved from the desktop to the Web and the business model shifted from packaged software to open source. It turned out that the way to compete with Microsoft was to not to compete, at least not directly," said Weinberg, according to CNET.

"The way to compete with Microsoft was to change the basis of competition. We invested in DuckDuckGo because we became convinced that it was not only possible to change the basis of competition in search, it was time to do it."

DuckDuckGo claims it is a "general purpose search engine like Google or Bing" and that users can get "way more instant answers," "less spam and clutter (we ban those useless sites with just ads)," "lots and lots of goodies," and "real privacy."

"We don't bubble or track you!" DuckDuckGo says below its homepage search bar.

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