Privacy-focused Internet search engine company DuckDuckGo has launched an App Tracking Protection tool on its Android app.

The feature — currently in beta — blocks third-party trackers across the user’s apps, even when they are not being used.

DuckDuckGo said its tests found that the average Android user’s smartphone with 35 apps experienced between 1,000–2,000 tracking attempts every day and contacted 70+ tracking companies.

To illustrate the proliferation of tracking instances, it proposed a scenario where the user was making use of four apps for various purposes over the course of an afternoon:

• Keeping an eye on flight prices for a getaway using the Southwest Airlines app

• Checking out a house your friend has been raving about using the Zillow app

• Seeing if those concert tickets have gone on sale yet using the SeatGeek app

• Checking the weather using the Weather Network app

“Within these four apps alone, over 45 tracking companies are known to collect personal data like your precise location, email address, phone number, time zone, and a fingerprint of your device, that can be used to identify you,” DuckDuckGo said.

Companies like Google and Facebook use this information to build a profile that advertisers and content-targeting companies can use to influence what users see online.

“The problems with all this information collection go way beyond so-called ‘relevant’ (aka creepy) advertising and targeting,” DuckDuckGo said.

“Tracking networks can sell your data to other companies like data brokers, advertisers, and governments, resulting in more substantial harms like ideological manipulation, discrimination, personal price manipulation, polarisation, and more,” DuckDuckGo said.

The latest version of the App Tracking Protection Tool blocks most of the tracking requests and allows users to see what data trackers are typically trying to collect before being locked out.

“The DuckDuckGo app on Android also offers a real-time view of App Tracking Protection’s results, including which tracking network is associated with each app and what data they’re known to collect,” the company said.

“If you have notifications on, you’ll also get automatic summaries if you want them.”

Notifications from DuckDuckGo regarding blocked trackers

The feature uses a virtual private network (VPN) service to handle the blocking of trackers on DuckDuckGo’s public blocklist.

The company said this occurs without any app data being sent to its own or other remote servers.

DuckDuckGo said users could continue using their apps as usual while the App Tracking Protection runs in the background.

The company said its feature could be more powerful than Apple’s much-punted App Tracking Transparency feature that blocks app tracking.

A class action lawsuit was recently launched against Apple over that feature, which two developers found did not block Apple’s own apps’ tracking capabilities.

They found that toggling the analytics control and other privacy settings had no obvious effect on Apple’s data collection in Apple’s App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, Books, and Stocks apps.

Apple appeared to be collecting data from every single user-initiated action in these apps, including taps and search history, as well as what ads the user saw and how long they looked at them.

DuckDuckGo’s App Tracking Protection feature is available in version 5.143.1 of its Android app, downloadable from the Google Play Store.

DuckDuckGo launching anti-tracking tool for Android (mybroadband.co.za)