DuckDuckGo launches a brand new subscription to bundle VPN and identification theft safety

Privateness-focused client tech firm DuckDuckGo launched a brand new Privateness Professional subscription on Thursday that bundles a VPN service, private info elimination, and identification theft restoration.

The plan, which prices $9.99 monthly or $99 per yr, is at present accessible solely to folks within the U.S. That is the corporate’s first transfer in direction of a subscription service constructed into the DuckDuckGo browser.

DuckDuckGo has been worthwhile since 2014, however has to this point relied on advert income. The subscription service opens up a brand new avenue for the corporate to earn a living.

Picture Credit: DuckDuckGo

The VPN makes use of the open-source WireGuard protocol to guard your identification whilst you go to completely different websites on the net. The corporate stated that each one DNS queries are additionally routed via DuckDuckGo’s personal DNS resolvers, so web service suppliers (ISPs) can’t snoop in your shopping historical past.

With private info elimination service, DuckDuckGo scans dozens of data broker sites to search out particulars like your title and tackle. If the service finds your particulars on any of those websites, it requests elimination and likewise handles e mail correspondence with them.

The corporate says that for this function, it makes use of Removaly, a startup DuckDuckGo acquired in 2022. (At the moment, Removaly’s founder, Kyle Krzeski, posted on X {that a} privateness firm acquired the startup with out naming it.)

The third function of DuckDuckGo’s privateness professional plan is identification theft restoration, the place an advisor would make it easier to get well your identity-related loss across the clock. This contains monetary losses, fixing credit score reviews by even freezing the report till identification is restored, and changing and canceling gadgets like driver’s licenses, financial institution playing cards, and passports. The corporate stated that the restoration agent will work with you, cope with all of the formalities, and comply with up with numerous firms.

Picture Credit: DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo says that to make sure person privateness, it maintains no logs of customers’ VPN exercise, shops knowledge offered throughout private info elimination on the native system, and the corporate assigns a random ID when customers join the Privateness Professional service. ‘

Earlier this yr, DuckDuckGo added cross-device syncing for passwords and bookmarks for straightforward entry to this info.

Earlier this yr, court filings in the U.S. Department of Justice vs. Google revealed that DuckDuckGo accounted for less than 2.5% of common search queries within the U.S. in 2021 and between 0.5% to 2.5% in Europe in 2023.