2023 DuckDuckGo Charitable Donations: $1.1M to support privacy, competition, and digital rights
2023 marks DuckDuckGo's thirteenth year of donations—our annual program to support organizations that share our vision of raising the standard of trust online. This year, we're proud to donate to a diverse selection of organizations across the globe that strive for better privacy, digital rights, greater competition in online markets, and access to information free from algorithmic bias.
This year, we’re donating $1,100,000, bringing the total donations since 2011 to $5,850,000. Everyone using the Internet deserves simple and accessible online protection; these organizations are all pushing to make that a reality. We encourage you to check out their valuable work below, alongside details about how our funds were allocated this year.
$125,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
“EFF’s mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world. EFF has been defending civil liberties in the digital world for over thirty years.”
$125,000 to The Markup
"The Markup challenges technology to serve the public good by producing investigative journalism, unique tools, and accessible resources to inspire action and agency."
$125,000 to Public Knowledge
"Public Knowledge promotes freedom of expression, an open internet, and access to affordable communications tools and creative works. We work to shape policy on behalf of the public interest."
$50,000 to ARTICLE 19
"Established in 1987, ARTICLE 19 is an international non-profit organization that defends freedom of expression, fights against censorship, protects dissenting voices, and advocates against laws and practices that silence individuals, both online and offline."
$50,000 to Common Crawl
“The Common Crawl Foundation was founded with the goal of democratizing access to web information by producing and maintaining an open repository of web crawl data that is universally accessible and analyzable. Our vision is of a truly open web that allows open access to information and enables greater innovation in research, business, and education. We level the playing field by making wholesale extraction, transformation, and analysis of web data cheap and easy.”
$50,000 to European Digital Rights (EDRi)
"European Digital Rights (EDRi) is the biggest European network defending rights and freedoms online - currently 50+ NGOs are members of EDRi and dozens of observers closely contribute to its work. In 2023, EDRi celebrates its 20th anniversary of existence - 20 years of impact and efforts to build a people-centered, democratic, digital society."
$50,000 to Fight for the Future
“Founded in 2011, Fight has organized some of the largest and most effective online campaigns in history, with a focus on ensuring that marginalized communities have equitable access to the Internet and technology that is free of surveillance, abuse of personal data, and censorship.”
$50,000 to Signal
“Signal Technology Foundation protects free expression and enables secure global communication through open source privacy technology.”
$50,000 to the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.)
“The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.) advocates and litigates for privacy, working to abolish local governments’ systems of discriminatory mass surveillance."
$50,000 to the Technology Oversight Project
"Through engaging with lawmakers, exposing false narratives and bad actors, and pushing for landmark legislation, The Tech Oversight Project seeks to hold tech giants accountable for their anti-competitive, corrupting, and corrosive influence on our society and the levers of power."
$25,000 to Access Now
“As a grassroots-to-global organization, Access Now defends and extends the digital rights of people and communities at risk by fighting for human rights in the digital age through direct technical support, strategic advocacy, grassroots grantmaking, and convenings such as RightsCon.”
$25,000 to Algorithmic Justice League (AJL)
“AJL’s harms reporting platform aims to capture people's lived experiences with AI harms, connect them with resources, and identify areas where there are no or few resources.”
$25,000 to Bits of Freedom
“Bits of Freedom shapes tech policy in order to facilitate an open and just society, in which people can hold power accountable and effectively question the status quo.”
$25,000 to the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL)
"The Competition Law Forum is a centre of excellence for European competition and antitrust policy and law at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL)."
$25,000 to the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2)
“UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2), housed in the UCLA Division of Social Sciences, is a critical internet studies community committed to reimagining technology, championing social justice, and strengthening human rights through research, culture, and public policy.”
$25,000 to Creative Commons (CC)
“Creative Commons (CC) is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to building and sustaining a thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture that serves the public interest.”
$25,000 to Digital Rights Watch
"Digital Rights Watch is Australia's leading digital rights organisation. They defend and promote privacy, democracy, fairness and fundamental rights in the digital age."
$25,000 to Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF)
“The Society for Civil Rights e.V. (Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e.V. or "GFF") is a donor-funded organization from Germany that defends fundamental and human rights by legal means. The organization promotes democracy and civil society, protects against disproportionate surveillance and advocates for equal rights and social participation for everyone.”
$25,000 to OpenMedia
"OpenMedia is a community-driven organization that works to keep the Internet open, affordable, and surveillance-free. We operate as a civic engagement platform to educate, engage, and empower Internet users to advance digital rights around the world."
$25,000 to the Open Rights Group (ORG)
“Open Rights Group (ORG) is the UK’s largest grassroots digital rights campaigning organisation, working to protect everyone’s rights to privacy and free speech online.”
$25,000 to the Open Source Technology Improvement Fund (OSTIF)
“Open Source Technology Improvement Fund directly helps critical open source projects with their security needs and is extremely grateful for the continued support from DuckDuckGo. This funding is pivotal to ongoing operations and growth, as it is one of our only donation sources that is not tied to any deliverable or project. Over the past year, we have been able to sustainably help critical open source projects improve their security posture, and in the process have found and fixed over 100 significant bugs and vulnerabilities.”
$25,000 to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
“Privacy Rights Clearinghouse focuses on increasing access to information, policy discussions, and meaningful rights so that data privacy can be a reality for everyone.”
$25,000 to Restore the Fourth
“Restore the Fourth opposes mass government surveillance, and organizes locally and nationally to defend privacy and the Fourth Amendment.”
$25,000 to Tactical Tech
“Tactical Tech is an international NGO that, for over 20 years, has engaged with citizens and civil society organisations to explore and mitigate the impacts of technology on society.”
$25,000 to the Tor Project
“At the Tor Project, we believe everyone should be able to explore the internet with privacy. We advance human rights and defend your privacy online through free, open source software and the decentralized Tor network.”
