DuckDuckGo launches new subscription bundled with VPN and identity theft protection

Privacy-focused consumer tech company DuckDuckGo on Thursday launched a new Privacy Pro subscription that bundles VPN service, personal information deletion and identity theft recovery.

The plan costs $9.99 per month or $99 per year and is currently only available to US users. This is the company’s first step toward a subscription service built into the DuckDuckGo browser.

DuckDuckGo has been profitable since 2014 but has so far relied on advertising revenue. Subscription services open up a new way for companies to make money.

Image Source: Duck Go

VPNs use the open source WireGuard protocol to protect your identity when you visit different sites on the web. All DNS queries are also routed through DuckDuckGo’s own DNS resolver, so Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can’t snoop on your browsing history, the company says.

Through the personal information removal service, DuckDuckGo scans dozens of data broker websites for details such as your name and address. If the service discovers your details on any of these sites, it will request removal and process email communications with those sites.

The company said that to implement this feature, it used Removaly, a startup that DuckDuckGo acquired in 2022. (At that time, Removaly founder Kyle Krzeski, Posted on X A privacy company acquired the startup but did not name it. )

The third feature of the DuckDuckGo Privacy Pro plan is Identity Theft Recovery, where advisors are available 24/7 to help you recover from identity-related losses. This includes financial losses, repairing your credit report by freezing it until your identity is restored, and replacing and canceling items such as driver’s licenses, bank cards, and passports. The company says a recovery agent will work with you to handle all formalities and follow up with each company.

Image Source: Duck Go

To ensure user privacy, DuckDuckGo says it keeps no logs of users’ VPN activity, stores data provided when personal information is deleted locally on the device, and the company assigns a random ID when users sign up for the Privacy Pro service. ‘

Earlier this year, DuckDuckGo added cross-device synchronization of passwords and bookmarks to make this information easily accessible.

Earlier this year, court documents from the U.S. Department of Justice v. Google showed that DuckDuckGo accounted for only 2.5% of general search queries in the United States in 2021, and that the proportion in Europe will be between 0.5% and 2.5% in 2023.