On Thursday, privacy-conscious tech company DuckDuckGo launched a fresh and groundbreaking offering for consumers: the Privacy Pro subscription. This comprehensive plan encompasses a VPN service, personal information removal, and identity theft restoration, all at a reasonable cost of $9.99 per month or $99 per year. Currently, the subscription is only available to those residing in the United States, marking the company’s first foray into a subscription-based model integrated into the DuckDuckGo browser.
It’s worth noting that while DuckDuckGo has been profitable since 2014, they have relied primarily on advertising revenue. The introduction of this subscription service provides a new opportunity for the company to generate income.
The VPN component of the plan utilizes the open-source WireGuard protocol to safeguard your online identity as you navigate various websites. To further uphold your privacy, all DNS queries are routed through DuckDuckGo’s own DNS resolvers, preventing your internet service provider (ISP) from accessing your browsing history.
The personal information removal service is another key feature of the plan. Using Removaly, a startup DuckDuckGo acquired in 2022, the company scans numerous data broker sites to locate details such as your name and address. If your information is discovered on any of these sites, DuckDuckGo will request its removal and manage all correspondence with the sites on your behalf.
As for the identity theft restoration feature, DuckDuckGo provides round-the-clock support from an advisor to help you navigate and recover from potential identity theft. This includes assisting with financial losses, fixing credit reports (even freezing them if necessary), and replacing or canceling important documents like driver’s licenses, bank cards, and passports. The company assures that their recovery agent will work closely with you, handle all formalities, and follow up with relevant companies.
To further protect user privacy, DuckDuckGo has implemented a strict no-logging policy for VPN activity, stores any data collected during personal information removal locally on your device, and assigns users a random ID upon signing up for the Privacy Pro service.
In addition to the launch of this new subscription plan, earlier this year DuckDuckGo also introduced a cross-device syncing feature for passwords and bookmarks, making it even easier to access these important pieces of information.
Interestingly, court filings in the recent U.S. Department of Justice vs. Google case revealed that DuckDuckGo accounted for a mere 2.5% of general search queries in the U.S. in 2021 and only between 0.5% to 2.5% in Europe in 2023.
