Alternative search engine DuckDuckGo has been around for 10 years and champions internet privacy and security. The secure search engine does not track users IP addresses nor their search history. Now, DuckDuckGo is out with a new product to keep consumers safe when they travel onto sites outside of the search engine.
Gabriel Weinberg is the CEO and Founder of DuckDuckGo. Weinberg touts that DuckDuckGo prides itself on keeping user information private. He explains that Google is running trackers on 75% of websites. On any site you visit, it is likely that Google or Facebook is in the background of that site and is tracking and selling your data.
For that reason, DuckDuckGo is rolling out technology and an application today that will protect its users when they travel onto websites from the search engine.
DuckDuckGo is trying to break up the advertising duopoly and encourage better privacy practices. DuckDuckGo is ad-supported. It mkaes money by using keyword advertising rather than targeted advertisements. This means that if you search "car" in DuckDuckGo, you will most likely see ads for cars on the page.
Stocks closed mixed on Wednesday, but two indexes - the Dow and the S&P 500 - ended the session with a new record. Akshata Bailkeri, Equity Analyst at Bruderman Asset Management, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where she says there is a consensus for robust consumer spreading in 2022, especially as the Omicron variant is proving to be milder than other COVID-19 strains.
John Quelch, Dean of Miami Herbert Business School, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says the retail giant is acting in accordance to President Biden's new law banning goods from China's Xinjiang region. Quelch also elaborates on the importance of China in Walmart's overall strategy.
Cheddar's Chloe Aiello has our cannabis year-in-review, breaking down how several states legalized adult recreational use and greenlit medicinal use in 2021. She noted that while a cannabis legalization and decriminalization bill was introduced in Congress this year, potential FDA involvement in the industry, as well as a 25 percent excise tax, killed any chance the bill had of moving forward. Aiello also speculated that some form of cannabis reform could be rolled out in 2022, as the midterm elections draw closer.
Jim Worden, Chief Investment Officer at Wealth Consulting Group, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says the period between Christmas and New Year's is difficult to predict due to a lack of institutional volume, with the Omicron variant adding even more uncertainty on Wall Street.
Prices at the pump this year reached a seven-year high, and a new forecast from GasBuddy shared with CNN predicts that gas prices will only continue to rise in 2022 and that the national average could even reach $4.00 a gallon; however, analysts at GasBuddy say anything could happen when it comes to gas prices in the future, as the pandemic has made it difficult to make any predictions about the economy. Consumer Energy Alliance federal policy advisor Michael Zehr joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
