As far as I know, DDG does not track search results tied to users, however, your search terms are part of the URL, so your VPN provider could theoretically see them as they pass through their exit node, unless you are also encrypting your DNS requests.
On some systems, DNS requests might expose the hostname of servers that serve sites for results that you’re clicking on. Firefox and Chrome at least, probably others, defaults to use of DNS-over-HTTPS, so the hostname shouldn’t be visible in plaintext even then.
Depending upon how the HTTP server is set up, due to SNI, it may be possible for the VPN provider to see the hostname to which you are opening a connection during the TLS handshake by looking at the HTTPS traffic. AFAICT, this is the common case today.
Sounded like they meant can DDG track their searches, which would be a yes, if they wanted to. VPN altering your IP doesn’t stop search parsing, especially if your browser, os, screen red etc are somewhat unique then they’ll be able to fingerprint the user
As far as I know, DDG does not track search results tied to users, however, your search terms are part of the URL, so your VPN provider could theoretically see them as they pass through their exit node, unless you are also encrypting your DNS requests.
DNS requests shouldn’t contain search terms.
On some systems, DNS requests might expose the hostname of servers that serve sites for results that you’re clicking on. Firefox and Chrome at least, probably others, defaults to use of DNS-over-HTTPS, so the hostname shouldn’t be visible in plaintext even then.
Depending upon how the HTTP server is set up, due to SNI, it may be possible for the VPN provider to see the hostname to which you are opening a connection during the TLS handshake by looking at the HTTPS traffic. AFAICT, this is the common case today.
Sounded like they meant can DDG track their searches, which would be a yes, if they wanted to. VPN altering your IP doesn’t stop search parsing, especially if your browser, os, screen red etc are somewhat unique then they’ll be able to fingerprint the user