DuckDuckGo Announces Privacy Pro Subscription

DuckDuckGo is bundling three new privacy services into a single subscription called Privacy Pro that costs $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year. It’s available first in the United States but will expand to other regions in the future.

“Because our privacy is abused in so many ways, people need multi-faceted protection,” DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg says. “Our goal is to make getting that kind of comprehensive, best-in-class privacy protection easy. Today, tens of millions of people already rely on our browser for seamless overlapping protections while they search, browse, and email. Adding Privacy Pro further expands this privacy layer — protecting your whole Internet connection with a VPN, reducing how much of your personal information is being sold by data brokers, and offering some peace of mind if your identity is stolen — all in one simple package.”

The DuckDuckGo web browser includes the DuckDuckGo private search engine, tracker blocking, Email Protection, and other free privacy features. But the firm says that some protections, like VPN secure network connections, require “more bandwidth and other resources.” Hence, this new paid offering. There are three components to Privacy Pro: An anonymous VPN that’s optimized for speed, security, and simplicity (and works on up to five devices simultaneously), a Personal Information Removal service that finds and removes your personal data from data brokers that store and sell them, and an Identity Theft Restoration service that provides a dedicated advisor if your identity is stolen to help you restore stolen accounts, recover financial losses, and fix your credit report.

DuckDuckGo notes that the subscription service adheres to its privacy policy, with its maximum privacy and minimum data principles. The company doesn’t keep VPN activity logs and has no way to tie what you do to you as an individual. Personal Information Removal works directly from your device, so the details you provide there are stored locally and not on remove servers; it only starts opt-out processes with data brokers after DuckDuckGo have confirmed that they have you in their databases. And Identity Theft Restoration is there only when you need it, so you don’t provide any information up-front.

Beyond that, DuckDuckGo doesn’t use traditional online accounts. Instead, it assigns you a random ID when you sign up for Privacy Pro. And because payments are handled by third-parties—Apple App Store, Google Play, or Stripe, depending on how you sign up—it has no way to connect this random ID to your payment information.

You can learn more on the DuckDuckGo Privacy Pro website.