Do people really care about privacy?  Well, obviously not everyone does, but if you look at Duck Duck Go and other private search engines’ latest numbers, you’d have to admit that more than a few people do.

DDG tweeted last that “It took 1445 days to get 1M searches, 483 days to get 2M searches, and then just 8 days to pass 3M searches: https://duckduckgo.com/traffic/.”

“We offer that in web search, and there are others that offer it in other verticals. As people find out about these alternatives, they make that choice,” explained DDG founder & CEO Gabriel Weinberg via email.

The increase in direct searches on the search engine is said to have been the result of people looking for an alternative to Google Search, in light of the recent news that the latter just can’t be trusted any more. Google was of course, one of the most prominent web companies alleged to participate in the government’s PRISM spying program.

Other search engines such as StartPage.com and its sister Ixquick.com have also announced that they’ve passed the 3M mark over the last week, signifying that people really are looking for something more private – something that the NSA just can’t track.

Chart courtesy of DuckDuckGo

Last week, StartPage and Ixquick served 3.4 million direct private searches, increasing their traffic by 75 percent compared to a year before.  The two search engines pride themselves as “the world’s most private search engines,” due to powerful features that protect user privacy. StartPage lets users access Google results in total privacy while Ixquick provides private search results that do not include Google’s results at all.

“People are outraged over secret US surveillance programs and they’re looking for safe, effective search alternatives,” StartPage CEO Robert Beens said in the company’s announcement. “We’re excited at this growth and we welcome our newest users with open arms.”

But do these numbers really matter?

As upset as some people are that no one seems to give two hoots about their online privacy, when you compare DuckDuckGo, StartPage and Ixquick’s combined 10 million or so searches to the 13 billion direct searches being done on Google every day, they barely even scratch the surface.  These private search engines aren’t even close to making a dent in Google’s business.

DuckDuckGo vs Google Comparison courtesy of SearchEngineLand.com

So what does this say about people’s attitudes?  Unfortunately it seems to suggest that most people really don’t care all that much about protecting their privacy – and indeed, many people have been pretty vocal about this viewpoint, with a good number of web users (mostly American) even voicing their approval of the NSA’s spying.  I’ve heard people say, “Meh, let them spy.  They won’t find anything,” or “I hope the government’s enjoying what they’re reading,” and even “When the Xbox One goes on sale, the government will finally stop spying on people because they’d get fed up watching shirtless fat men lounging around all day in front of their Kinect.”

Some might think these comments are amusing, but for others it’s quite disturbing how people could care so little when its their own lives that’re being viewed under a microscope by government agencies

So are private search engines doomed to live in Google’s shadow for all eternity? I think not. Google might be in an all-powerful position right now, but what the likes of DuckDuckGo have accomplished means that there are more than a few people care about their privacy, and these’re obviously upset that Google has betrayed their trust. That’s something that shouldn’t be ignored – as we learn more about the extent of PRISM, this number could grow exponentially, giving even greater momentum to private search engines that might one day be able to mount a serious challenge.

What needs to happen, aside from people to care more about their privacy, is that people should not be afraid of trying out something new.  People have become so used to using Google Search that they would rather sacrifice their privacy rather than try out a service that’s every bit as good and a whole lot more trustworthy to boot.