Email trackers are everywhere but this ‘Email Protection’ service can stop that

• Everyone can now utilize DuckDuckGo’s privacy-focused email service
• Email Protection can provide users with an endless supply of disposable private addresses to use on spam-prone websites

Ever wondered how random emails may be sent to someone’s inbox? Scrolling through inboxes and discovering emails highlighting events, product and content browsed recently? What ever happened to emails being private? Unfortunately, its hard to guarantee privacy when using public email servers.

Messages are actually traced even just by reading an email, sending a startling amount of data back to the sender even when there was never a reply to the sender. These email trackers are everywhere!

It happens frequently, believe it or not, particularly in newsletters and promotional communications. However, trackers aren’t just for them. Anyone can use services that accomplish this for free and with ease to insert a tracker into someone else’s email.

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Due to privacy considerations, this raises concerns. But there is now a means to combat it, and it is readily available to the general public. Anyone who wants to get their own @duck.com email address can now do so thanks to a service offered by DuckDuckGo called ‘Email Protection.’

Technically, this service is not brand-new. While it is still in beta, having been introduced as a closed beta in July 2021, the internet company was satisfied that the moment had come to make it publicly accessible to the general public.

What is Email Protection and how does it work?

DuckDuckGo Email Protection is a mail forwarding service that has built-in privacy capabilities. Anyone can register for an @duck.com forwarding address that goes to their preferred standard mailbox. Before being routed to them, emails sent to their @duck.com address are purged of any known trackers.

The users will also see a brief report detailing how many trackers were removed, whose businesses were in charge of injecting them, and other information when they receive the emails.

Email Protection can give users an infinite number of throwaway private addresses to use on websites with a high spam risk and can be turned off if the spamming gets out of hand. Additionally, it is possible to reduce the effects of data breaches and exposure by using disposable addresses.

Email message contents are not saved when using the service, according to DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo promises that it will only use personal information for providing its services and only stores forwarding addresses and aliases on its servers.

Email trackers must go!

Numerous times, people simply submit their email addresses to sign up for a membership, event, or promotion. They then began receiving emails from companies they had never even subscribed to. Or even when, after clicking on an email link, advertisements suddenly began to appear everywhere they went.

Simply said, there are a lot of ways for businesses to track consumers via their email. Even worse, they would do this secretly while disclosing personal information about them to third parties.

People’s email addresses are associated with so many online activities, including shopping, using social media, and more, that tracking companies can use them to identify individuals for profiling purposes. In fact, many businesses are so desperate for personal email addresses that they would even extract them from unsubmitted online forms!

New features in this new release

DuckDuckGo expanded its tracker blocking functionality to include links in addition to scripts, pictures, and other media as part of the beta’s introduction of the service to the general public. Link trackers, for instance, are frequently used by marketers and phishing kits to monitor which URLs are clicked.

Second, even if the email author used HTTP, a new “Smart Encryption” system automatically directs users who click on embedded links to the HTTPS version of the target site.

Third, the option to send messages or reply using Duck addresses, which may be useful in circumstances where sender anonymity is required.

The user-friendly interface that DuckDuckGo has finally implemented allows people to rapidly set up forwarding addresses, make changes while they’re using the service, manage their account settings, and more.

All in all, nothing is infallible, even while these services and tactics will undoubtedly strengthen the security of people’s privacy to some level. People should use be cautious when clicking links, opening emails, and providing personal information to third parties.

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