DuckDuckGo’s tracker removal email service, which has been available in closed beta for a year, is now open to anyone using the DuckDuckGo mobile app, browser extension, or Mac browser. It also added a few more privacy tools.
The Service provides you with a duck.com email address for “Subscribe to Our Newsletter for 20% Off”, store loyalty programs and other services that exist only to collect data and target you for advertising. An email sent to your duck.com address is redirected to the primary email address you chose, but with the trackers removed.
Email protection now also fixes links, strips them of tracking modifiers, upgrades unencrypted HTTP URLs to HTTPS where possible, and, for the rare needed response, allows you to send directly from your duck address instead of exposing your primary email address mail. During closed beta testing, DuckDuckGo claims that 85% of emails processed contained hidden trackers.
To sign up for Email Protection, you will need to use the DuckDuckGo mobile app for iOS or Android, use the DuckDuckGo browser extension on Firefox, Chrome, Edge, or Brave, or use their Mac beta browser (list for which should join in the DuckDuckGo mobile app).
In my own experience, using the company’s apps, extensions, or browser isn’t necessary to keep the email forwarding service alive, but they do allow you to automatically fill in your duck address and create separate disposable email addresses for specific sites, which is handy for email filtering.
DuckDuckGo notes that trackers embedded in email images and links can send information to the sender about when you opened the message, your geolocation when you opened it, and what device you were using. Knowing your primary email address can also allow companies to link it to Facebook and Google and target you with ads on different sites.
The company helpfully notes that it won’t track you with its anti-tracking service itself. “When your Duck Addresses receive an email, we immediately apply our tracking protection and then forward it to you without ever storing it on our systems. Sender information, subject lines… we don’t track any of this,” the company writes. on your blog. DuckDuckGo is also “committed to protecting email for the long term”and says it worked to support millions of users during its closed beta.
Listing image by DuckDuckGo