If the list was allowed to include a short description provided by the search provider, and DDG's said something like "Your privacy is important. We never track you or record your searches.", many more people might choose DDG.
I've been using DDG since they first launched, and that simple promise was all it took to get me to try them out the first time I heard of them.
Let's not delude ourselves into thinking that DDG has even a percent of a percent of Google's brand recognition. The fact that we are even discussing this shows what sort of a bubble we are in. The vast vast majority of users in the real world don't know or care about DDG.
No matter what your opinion of the company, Google's brand reputation is well earned and pervasive, and it started and was built from scratch, as opposed to DDG which basically stuck its own logo on Bing's API.
