DuckDuckGo Search Engine Sees Another Top In-House Lawyer Depart

DuckDuckGo, an internet research engine that has built headlines in new years by calling out the business procedures of Massive Tech, has watched two leading attorneys depart its ranks within just the earlier fifty percent-12 months.

Abigail Phillips, the company’s deputy typical counsel, still left DuckDuckGo this month. She’s now basic counsel for Basecamp LLC, a computer software firm that the moment acquired economical backing from Amazon.com Inc. founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

Phillips’ departure follows that of Megan Gray, a former common counsel and vice president of public coverage at DuckDuckGo. Gray still left the company final September to restart her own exercise, GrayMatters Law & Coverage.

Grey, who invested a very little more than 3 several years at DuckDuckGo, verified her departure by means of electronic mail but declined more comment. A DuckDuckGo spokeswoman declined to explore the company’s designs for naming a new lawful chief.

DuckDuckGo, established in 2008, has appeared to fill a market in the web lookup room by vowing to protect the privacy of its customers.

That mission was scrutinized this thirty day period in a tale by Vox Media’s Recode, which delved into DuckDuckGo’s choice to be a part of other massive engineering businesses in down-position web-sites that propagate Russian disinformation, a controversial subject for its more politically conservative customers. The New York Times noted in February on how DuckDuckGo has come to be a popular world-wide-web lookup platform for conspiracy theorists and ideal-wing social media influencers.

New rankings put DuckDuckGo seventh in search applications worldwide behind sector leaders like Alphabet’s Google and Microsoft Corp.’s Bing.

Prior to joining DuckDuckGo, Grey spent a half-dozen a long time as an enforcement lawyer for the Federal Trade Fee in Washington, exactly where she labored on the regulator’s first purchaser privacy penalty circumstance versus Google.

Google has been criticized by DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg, who has spoken out about the world wide web look for giant’s allegedly anti-aggressive organization tactics and how it tracks person info to supply specific marketing.

In-Dwelling Turnover

DuckDuckGo’s sole remaining in-property lawyer appears to be affiliate standard counsel Amy Shepherd, a previous legal professional for Freddie Mac and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission who was employed by the organization previous calendar year.

Shepherd did not reply to a ask for for remark.

She joined DuckDuckgo last September, all around the identical time that Grey remaining the suburban Philadelphia-based mostly firm. Shepherd formerly served as standard counsel for the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute and the Excellent Food Institute, a pair of Arlington, Va.-based mostly nonprofits.

Public records show that DuckDuckGo, whose official corporate title is Duck Duck Go Inc., has turned to Baker & Hostetler to take care of trademark do the job. Gray, the company’s former authorized chief, formerly worked at that regulation company.

Bloomberg Law info display that Cohen & Gresser has entered the only look for DuckDuckGo in a U.S. federal courtroom, an antitrust case versus Google.

Katherine McInnis, the company’s senior U.S. public coverage supervisor, registered as a federal lobbyist for DuckDuckGo in February. She reported by means of email that the firm experienced no remark about its lawful and community coverage management.

Basecamp’s Initial Legal Chief

Phillips, the most recent senior lawyer at DuckDuckGo, is now the to start with-ever legal chief at Basecamp, formerly regarded as 37indicators. Jason Fried, the privately held company’s co-founder and CEO, confirmed her retain the services of.

The previous Perkins Coie associate used five years in-home at Yahoo Corp. and a yr as a senior employees lawyer for the Digital Frontier Foundation.

Prior to becoming a member of DuckDuckGo in late 2020, Phillips put in much more than two decades as head of legal for the Mozilla Foundation, the San Francisco-primarily based nonprofit arm of software program enterprise Mozilla Corp.