Duck Duck Go does not have its own internet backbone, so it has to piggyback on the big boys like Verizon and ATT and the big server farms that are connected by the fiber guys. This means your traffic goes over the same wires as Google, and anyone can read it. When I was in the Army, I reported to the NSA, I was a signals intelligence analyst, back in the days when radios were still used. The same techniques we used then are used on cellphone and internet traffic now, it is just easier because, with radio, everything is distributed, but with internet traffic, everything goes through the same corridors of fiber and they are easily monitored. That is why they have all those big computers at Fort Meade and why they are building that big data farm in Utah.
There is no “safety” on the internet. If they want to see what you are doing, there are several ways that they can and there is nothing you can do. If you want to make it harder for them to see what you are doing, you might get a VPN and encrypted email like protonmail over in Switzerland offers. I think I pay about $10 a month for VPN and email. If you combine this with the dark web and pgp, you will probably draw the NSA’s notice, but you will be too small a fish for them to worry about, they are more likely to put you on a watchlist and if something dings, break in and put a keystroke recorder on your keyboard or infect your computer with a reporting virus.
Everyone these days hates the government, hates big tech, hates the globalists bankers, etc. If this is all you have, don’t sweat it. If you are doing something shady, best to stay low tech or better yet, just don’t.