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DuckDuckGo is introducing a new email privacy service designed to prevent ad firms from snooping on your mailbox.
The company’s new Email Protection function provides customers with a free “@duck.com” email account that will route emails to your normal inbox after scanning their contents for trackers and removing any that are found. DuckDuckGo is also expanding this functionality with unique, disposable forwarding addresses that can be readily established in DuckDuckGo’s mobile browser or via desktop browser extensions.
The personal DuckDuckGo email should be sent to known friends and contacts, whilst disposable addresses should be used when signing up for free trials, newsletters, or anywhere you believe could sell your email address. You can quickly disable the email address if it has been hacked.
These technologies are comparable to Apple’s anti-tracking features in iOS 14 and iOS 15, however DuckDuckGo’s method integrates with iOS, Android, and all major web browsers. DuckDuckGo will also make it easy to generate temporary email addresses on the fly for newsletters or wherever else you would disclose your email address.
As the firm works for privacy-friendly ways for various online chores, tackling email privacy has been a significant objective for DuckDuckGo. The firm started with its namesake DuckDuckGo search engine and has now launched its own mobile browser and desktop browser plugins to eliminate trackers when browsing the web.
According to a widely referenced 2017 research, email trackers are present in more than 70% of mailing lists. They allow marketers to determine when you open email, where you are when you open it, and which device you are using after they are deployed. Removing trackers from email eliminates data points from lists that are used to create covert advertising profiles on you, which has become a focus for privacy activists in recent years.
The functionality is now under beta testing, and DuckDuckGo is still figuring out how it will work in the real world. The firm is also developing a privacy-focused desktop browser, which it aims to complete by the end of 2021 as part of a larger drive to provide privacy-focused options for every major online activity.
