OBVIOUS honeypot? Why do you say that? There's nothing particularly
OBVIOUS about it or someone besides you would notice...
First of all, DDG's claims of privacy follow the implausible general model of "heyyy, just trust us!"
But there's a historical reason as well. On the first day DuckDuckGo was announced, I did a whois query on duckduckgo.com. The domain was registered to an address in Annapolis, MD. A small building near the Naval Academy. Not proof of course, but suggestive.