Google competitor DuckDuckGo made so much money last year, it's giving away $225,000

When it comes to the internet search world Google has clearly won. Game over.

Even mighty Microsoft can't pilfer the internet's grip away from Google.

And yet, a tiny competitor to Google called DuckDuckGo must be doing something right.

It just announced that it will be giving away $25,000 to support each of nine open source projects, or $225,000 total. Last year, it gave away $125,000.

In 2015, DuckDuckGo performed 3 billion searches, it says.

DuckDuckGo's niche is private, anonymous internet search. For those who are creeped out by how much data Google collects on everyone, DuckDuckGo is the alternative.

It doesn't gather information about you to sell ads to marketeers, like Google does. Instead, it's part of the Microsoft/Bing/Yahoo ad network (as are many other sites) and shows generic ads based on more general stuff, such as the fact that you're using English.

It also has revenue-sharing agreements with certain companies in the Linux Open Source worlds, and it makes affiliate money when it directs people ot Amazon or eBay to buy something (just like most other websites).

Giving up Google doesn't mean giving up maps and directions, either. Las month, DuckDuckGo launched that feature.

Now, granted, $225,000 is a laughably small amount of money in the internet ad industry, especially compared to a company like Google.

Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org, gives away $100 million in grants every year, plus it donates about another $1 billion in products, it says.

But it just goes to show you that just because there's a Goliath dominating a market, that doesn't mean you can't launch a company and do well - at least well enough to give away hundreds of thousands of dollars.