DuckDuckGo PrivacyPro bundles VPN into its first paid subscription

DuckDuckGo started life as a privacy-first search engine before adding a web browser, email protection and more, and the company has now announced its first ever paid subscription: DuckDuckGo PrivacyPro.

This bundles an open-source VPN service with personal information removal and identify theft restoration for $9.99 per month …

DuckDuckGo

The DuckDuckGo web browser was originally created in response to concerns about the increasing use of trackers, especially by Google.

The browser offers anonymous web searching. The company doesn’t capture any of your private information, like IP address of unique identifiers, and doesn’t use any trackers. It also blocks third-party trackers, like those used by Facebook. Email protection was later added to strip tracking codes from promotional emails.

So far, all of the company’s products have been funded by ads – though as they can’t be personalized ads, they display generic ones, which generate significantly less revenue.

DuckDuckGo PrivacyPro

The company is now venturing into paid services with a three-in-one combo.

• An anonymous VPN built for speed, security, and simplicity. Secure your connection anytime, anywhere, on up to five devices simultaneously.
• Personal Information Removal, which finds and removes personal details – like your name and home address – from data broker sites that store and sell them, helping to combat identity theft and spam.
• Identity Theft Restoration. If your identity is stolen, a dedicated advisor will help restore stolen accounts, assist in recovering resulting financial losses, and help correct your credit report.

The company says that the combo offers the most comprehensive protection.

On its own, the DuckDuckGo browser lets you search and browse privately. By adding Privacy Pro, you can also limit data brokers’ access to your personal information and secure your Internet connection across your whole device, which hides your location and device IP address from sites you visit — all in one place.

Costs $9.99/month, or $99/year

The service costs $9.99 per month, or you can save with an annual subscription of $99 per year.

The company claims that “getting these services separately from other companies could cost upwards of $30/month,” but that seems a stretch.

The core value here is the VPN service, which makes for a relatively expensive proposition when compared to no-logs services like NordVPN. But if you actively want the automated data broker removal requests and identify theft insurance, it could be a reasonable deal.