Inside, things are more complicated. Greg Fiorentino, DuckDuckGo's director of products, said that when you enter personal data into the system, it's all stored in an encrypted database on your computer (the tool doesn't work on mobile) and that this information is used by the company. It says that it will not be sent to. . “Nothing is sent to the DuckDuckGo servers at all,” he says.
According to Fiorentino, DuckDuckGo looked at the URL structure of each data broker's website. For example, search results may include the name, location, and other personal information queried. When the personal information tool searches for you on these websites, it constructs a URL containing the details you have entered.
“Each of the 53 sites we cover has a slightly different structure,” Fiorentino says. “We have a template URL string, and we replace the data from the user with the search. There are a lot of different nuances and things that need to be handled to actually match the data accurately.”
The company said that during testing, it found that most people had between 15 and 30 records on the data broker sites it checked, but the highest was around 150. Weinberg said he added six addresses to be removed from the website. “I found one that was a hit on the old one, and somehow it's still there even with the current address, which I tried to hide a little bit to avoid getting spam,” Weinberg says. “It's very difficult to avoid leaking personal information.”
Once a record scan is complete, the DuckDuckGo system uses a similar disassembly of each data broker website to automatically request deletion of the record, the product development team said. Fiorentino said some opt-outs occur within hours, while others can take weeks to delete data. The product director said the tool may be able to remove data from more websites in the future, and the company may include more sensitive data, such as financial information, in the opt-out. The company is reportedly considering
There are various personal information deletion services available on the web, and the content they remove from websites and the services they provide vary. Not everything can be trusted. Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox browser, recently suspended its privacy services after investigative journalist Brian Krebs revealed that the Onerep founder also founded dozens of people search websites in recent years. We have stopped working with Onerep.
DuckDuckGo's subscription service is the first time the company has started charging for its products. Its browser and search engine are free to use, and the company makes money from contextual advertising. Weinberg said that because subscriptions are purchased through his Apple App Store, Google Play, or his payment provider Stripe, details about who subscribes are not transferred to his DuckDuckGo's servers. That's what it means. A random ID is created for each user during sign-up, so you don't need to create an account or give DuckDuckGo any payment information. The company says it does not have access to people's Apple ID or Google account details.
