But Apple exec argued DuckDuckGo wasn't as private as believed. | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/apple-considered-ditching-google-for-duckduckgo-in-safaris-private-mode/
And it turned out Apple was right to be cautious on DDG privacy claims, although it's privacy is probably better than using Google. DDG was sharing some user info with Microsoft, even if they would have preferred not to, because they were using Bing ads. And frankly, Brave search engine may not be much better, if Brave search was even around at the time in question.