DuckDuckGo Fights Annoying Online Ads, Launches App Tracking Protection Feature

JAKARTA – DuckDuckGo is known as a privacy-focused alternative to Google Search, and the team behind the alternative search engine, has now launched an 'App Tracking Protection' tool that blocks hidden trackers in other apps, like Apple's own solution.

Apple itself introduced App Tracking Transparency with the release of iOS 14.5 to give users the opportunity to accept or block apps from tracking their activity on other apps and websites.

When a user opens an iOS app for the first time, they are shown a request asking if the app can track their activity to collect relevant data and show them personalized ads.

According to some preliminary findings, the majority of Apple device users actually choose not to be tracked when given the opportunity. The move came as a setback for the online advertising industry, removing about $10 billion from collective advertising revenue for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Snap.

Google plans to implement a similar system through the Play Store, but that plan has yet to materialize. Meanwhile, DuckDuckGo has announced App Tracking Protection for Android. This feature matured right within the eponymous app and claims to block third-party trackers in other apps that feed data to the likes of Google and Facebook.

Emphasizing the need for such a system on Android smartphones, DuckDuckGo claims that its investigation found third-party trackers hidden within 96 percent of the most popular free Android apps, of which 87 percent entered data into Google and 67 percent saved user data of phone activity to Facebook.

DuckDuckGo's anti-tracking solution is free and is touted to block third-party trackers hiding within the app. Once enabled, it will actively view data packets whenever the app tries to send data to a third-party tracking company and block it.

This tracking-and-blocking mechanism also happens in the background when the phone is just standing still, and all activity happens on the device, instead of routing data through an external server like a VPN does.

If the user allows notifications, the DuckDuckGo app will show a real-time view of when a third-party tracker is blocked. The feature is currently in beta phase and users will have to join a private waiting list that allows new participants to log in every week.

For those interested in trying App Tracking Protection, download the DuckDuckGo app from the Play Store, go to the Settings section of the app, tap App Tracking Protection, and select Join Private Waitlist on the next page.

There will be some exceptions initially, the company said. For example, there are certain cases like mobile games where tracking is required to function properly. If users experience problems, such as the inability to upload files, videos don't load properly, or if the app starts running slowly, they can choose to whitelist those apps one by one.

DuckDuckGo says that, over time, it will trim the list of apps that need to circumvent its anti-tracking system due to performance and functionality issues.