Privacy Search Engine DuckDuckGo Hits 10 Million Searches In A Single Day Because NSA

DuckDuckGo, the search engine that wants to steal users away from Google and give them their privacy back, surpassed 10 million searches in a single day for the first time ever, the company announced in a blog post Tuesday.

The Paoli, Pennsylvania, privacy search engine crossed the milestone on Monday when it racked up 10.2 million search queries. Although this is a big accomplishment for the startup, it should also come as no surprise. DuckDuckGo has been on a tear since 2013, when news of the National Security Agency's surveillance programs first broke. Since then, DuckDuckGo has grown by 600 percent and now handles 3 billion search queries per year.

DuckDuckGo's success is due in large part to the company's promise to be "the search engine that doesn't track you." Unlike Google, which keeps a tab on users' activities so it can deliver targeted ads to them across the Web, DuckDuckGo refrains from invading users' privacy. Instead, the startup makes money by showing users search ads, which are based solely on the keywords they type at the time of the search -- not on any of their previous online activity.

But for all of the headway DuckDuckGo has made, it still pales in comparison to Google's dominance over the search market. While Google accounts for more than 64 percent of the U.S. desktop search market, DuckDuckGo accounts for less than one percent of the market.