A free email forwarding service by DuckDuckGo called DuckDuckGo Email Protection that creates unlimited private email addresses without having to switch third party email providers and remove all kinds of hidden trackers lurking in your emails.
You can use DuckDuckGo Email Protection with your current email provider - no need to update your contacts or add multiple accounts. DuckDuckGo Email Protection works seamlessly in the background to have your more-private email delivered straight to your inbox.
How to signup
Email Protection is supported in the DuckDuckGo Privacy browser for iOS and Android, DuckDuckGo for Mac (beta), and the DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials browser extension for Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Brave.
Mobile: On the latest version of the DuckDuckGo app, open Settings > Email Protection to get started.
Desktop: Using the latest versions of the DuckDuckGo extension or DuckDuckGo for Mac (beta), navigate to https://duckduckgo.com/email.
There are two types that help protect your email privacy:
1. Personal Duck Address (Example: name@duck.com): Any email sent here will be removed from our block list of email trackers and then forwarded to the personal email address you provided, which is your regular inbox will reach in In the forwarded email, we'll tell you how many trackers we've removed, what company seems to be behind them, and other useful information.
2. Unique Private Duck Addresses (Example: avtzqdr@duck.com): When you are browsing different websites, DuckDuckGo automatically detects email fields so you have the option to generate a unique Private Duck Address for additional protection against email address profiling. Just like your Personal Duck Address, Private Duck Addresses also forward privacy-enhanced emails to your personal inbox. Using a new Private Duck Address every time you’re asked to submit an email address makes it much harder for companies to track you. They can also be individually deactivated at any time, for example if you start receiving spam to one of them.
Why Do You Need to Block Email Trackers or Hide Your Email Address?
Have you ever entered your email address for a lottery or used a service on the Internet and started receiving emails from companies you are not subscribed to? Or have you seen ads chasing you after clicking on an email link? You are not alone! There are many ways companies can use your email to track you, target you with ads, and influence what you see online. Companies also know when you opened messages, and what device you were using. A lot of scary companies can use this information to build a profile about you. They may also share your personal information with third parties - all without your knowledge.
Your email address is linked to so much of what you do online — making purchases, using social media, and more — tracking companies can also effectively use your personal email address as a profiling identifier. Huh. In fact, many companies are so hungry for your personal email address that they will actually pull it from online forms you haven't submitted yet! In addition to sending you more emails, companies often upload your email address to Facebook and Google to target you with creepy ads on apps and websites.
Features
Link Tracking Protection: In addition to blocking trackers in images, scripts, and other media embedded directly into emails, we can now detect and remove an increasing number of trackers embedded in email links.
How does it help: Let's say you click on an email link to see a new pair of shoes. Who you are (in the form of your email address or other identifiers) can be embedded in that link and then sent from the shoe retailer website loaded to other companies to follow you on the web. Link Tracking Protection helps protect against this scenario.
Smart Encryption: We've started using the same Smart Encryption (HTTPS Upgrading) that is working in our search engines and apps to upgrade insecure (unencrypted, HTTP) links in emails to secure (encrypted, HTTPS) links when they are on our upgradeable list.
How does it help: If you click on an email link that begins with http://, the connection to the website is unencrypted; Everything you do on that website is vulnerable to visitors, from the specific pages you visit to the words you search. But when the address begins with https:// (with an s at the end), the internet connection to the website is encrypted. If someone – like your Internet Service Provider or Wi-Fi Snooper – is trying to spy on you, they will only see what you are seeing.
Reply with your Duck Addresses: You can now reply to all your Duck Address emails. When you receive an email at a duck's address, you can simply press 'Reply', type your message and send it. Your email will then be delivered from your Duck address instead of your personal address.
How does it help: Let's say you're moving and want to request a price quote, but you don't want the moving company to have your personal email address. You can communicate back and forth using a private duck address instead of your personal address. Note: Although we are hiding as much personal information as possible, DuckDuckGo itself does not create messages, so we cannot guarantee that the email will not include your forwarding address or any other personal identifier.
Self-Service Dashboard: Want to update your forwarding address? Or even delete your account? Now you can make changes to your Duck account whenever you want, which will save you time and effort.
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