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by John W. Simek, Vice President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

App Tracking Protection Available for All Android Users

November 17, 2022

Data is the new gold. Information about users is coveted by marketers. We really don’t know how much of our personal information is being collected by the devices and apps we use every day. DuckDuckGo is focused on privacy and stopping the collection of personal user data. A recent blog post announced that DuckDuckGo has opened its App Tracking Protection for all Android users. As the post states, “The average Android user has 35 apps on their phone. Through our testing, we’ve found that a phone with 35 apps can experience between 1,000-2,000 tracking attempts every day and contact 70+ different tracking companies.” Some commentators are saying that the DuckDuckGo App Tracking Protection is even more powerful than Apple’s App Tracking Transparency for iOS.

CNET has a post with the specific instructions to get the app installed.

  1. Download DuckDuckGo for Android or update to the latest version — the latest version is 5.143.1.
  2. Open the DuckDuckGo app.
  3. Tap Settings.
  4. Tap App Tracking Protection beta in the More from DuckDuckGo section.
  5. Follow the on-screen prompts, and you’re finished.

You’ll discover that the app is very effective in blocking data leaving your device. Make it a point to review the app stats on a periodic basis. I’m sure you’ll see that thousands of attempts are blocked even from apps you probably don’t know are running in the background.

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