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| DuckDuckGo prevents tracking of Android users |
DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused tech company, started as a search engine and is now adding the ability to block hidden trackers to its Android apps.
This feature called "Android App Tracking Protection" will be released in beta version. It is designed to simulate iOS commands from Apple.
The company said the idea was to prevent the app from collecting this data. You should see much less scary ads online.
Previously, Apple launched an app tracking transparency tool in late April that rocked the advertising industry.
iPhone and iPad users can now prevent apps from tracking their behavior and using their data for personalized ads. Nearly $10 billion in revenue has been wiped out from Snap, Meta, Twitter and Google since this feature was first launched.
Most of the apps have third party trackers hidden in the code.
These trackers monitor your behavior in different apps and help you create an account that contains the products you've purchased, demographic data, and other information that can be used to deliver you personalized ads.
DuckDuckGo said that its analysis of popular free Android apps shows that more than 96% of them contain trackers.
Blocking these trackers means that Facebook and Google can't send data back to their parent company or dozens of ad networks you've never heard of.
The tool is integrated into the DuckDuckGo app on Android
After you turn on App Tracking Protection, it will run in the background while you are using your phone. The tool detects when the app sends data to a third-party tracker and then blocks the app from receiving your information.
The tool displays the total number of trackers that have been blocked in the past week and provides a breakdown of the most recent blocks in each app.
The tool does not currently display the data that each tracker is trying to send. But the company says that future versions will display the broad categories of information that a tracker would normally try to access.
The company said that the application tracking protection tool is not a VPN. But your device is like a VPN.
The beta version of App Tracking Protection for Android is still limited. Trackers are not blocked in all apps and browsers are not included.
Additionally, the company has found that there are some apps to track. Thus, mobile games can work.
Although the tool blocks Facebook trackers in other apps, it does not support blocking of trackers in the Facebook app itself. Under Settings, you can whitelist all other apps that aren't working properly with active app tracking protection.