Has DuckDuckGo ever logged user IP addresses and when did that change?
Executive summary
DuckDuckGo’s public policy declares that the company does not save or log users’ IP addresses or any unique identifiers to disk, and that it only uses IP-derived information transiently to deliver content and for security checks [1]. Documentation on how localized results are produced says DuckDuckGo performs a GeoIP lookup and then discards the IP, and available third‑party guides and reviews reiterate that the service does not retain IPs—none of the provided sources documents a past change in that policy [2] [3] [4].
1. What DuckDuckGo says it does with IP addresses
DuckDuckGo’s privacy policy explicitly states that the company “doesn’t save your IP address or any unique identifiers alongside your searches or visits to our websites” and that it “never log[s] IP addresses or any unique identifiers to disk that could be tied back to you or to your search and browsing history,” while acknowledging that IPs are necessarily visible to ISPs and hosting providers that route Internet traffic [1]. The company’s help pages add practical detail for local results: DuckDuckGo uses a GeoIP lookup on the IP address that is automatically sent, then “throws away” the IP—therefore it says IPs are used briefly to estimate location and for bot/security checks but not retained on servers [2].
2. How outside writers and reviews present the same claim
Independent explainers and consumer‑security blogs generally echo DuckDuckGo’s claim, stating the search engine “does not log or store IP addresses” and will not share them with third parties, reinforcing the company’s marketing position that it does not track users in the ways large ad‑driven search engines do [3]. A mainstream VPN provider’s guide likewise summarizes that DuckDuckGo “doesn’t log or store your IP” but points out the distinction that DuckDuckGo doesn’t itself hide a user’s IP from the websites they visit—meaning the company is not a VPN and cannot prevent sites beyond DuckDuckGo from seeing an originating IP [4].
3. What this does — and does not — prove about historical behavior
All sourced material supplied here speaks to DuckDuckGo’s current policy and implementation: no source in the provided set documents a prior period when the company logged IP addresses or a moment when that practice changed. The absence of evidence in these sources means it cannot be stated from this reporting that DuckDuckGo ever logged user IPs in the past or that a policy change occurred on a particular date; the available documents present the current, consistent claim of “never log to disk” [1] [2].
4. Caveats, implicit incentives, and alternative readings
DuckDuckGo’s emphasis on not logging IPs is central to its privacy branding, an incentive that aligns messaging, help pages, and third‑party summaries toward highlighting the “no‑logs” claim [1] [3]. Critics and privacy analysts often note the practical limit that DuckDuckGo cannot hide a device’s IP address from intermediate network operators or from websites a user visits without additional tools like a VPN, a nuance made explicit by DuckDuckGo and reiterated by reviewers [1] [4]. Given those limits, users seeking an operational guarantee that no party ever sees their IP would need to consult additional sources outside the provided reporting—such as independent audits, logs of legal requests, or historical changelogs—to evaluate whether internal operational practices have always matched the public policy.
5. Bottom line
Based on DuckDuckGo’s privacy policy and help documentation, and corroborating third‑party summaries included here, DuckDuckGo states it does not log or save IP addresses to disk and that it only uses IP information transiently [1] [2] [3] [4]. The provided reporting contains no documentation of a prior practice of logging IPs or a dated policy reversal; therefore, within the limits of these sources, there is no evidence that DuckDuckGo ever logged user IP addresses nor of a change away from that policy.