January 18, 2022

Easy privacy control across the Internet – introducing Startpage Privacy Protection.

Introducing Startpage Privacy Protection Extension, protecting you from cookies and trackers across the web.

Even in the privacy of your own home, with the curtains drawn, Big Tech is recording and auctioning off your personal data. From sensitive search queries like “how to get out of debt” to social posts featuring your child’s face in them — these bits of personal data are saved and sold every second.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said it best, “Corporations have built a hall of one-way mirrors: from the inside, you can see only apps, web pages, ads, and yourself reflected by social media. But in the shadows behind the glass, trackers quietly take notes on nearly everything you do.”

The offenders behind such invisible surveillance consist of tech companies, search engines, social platforms, data brokers, and advertisers. Your data is extremely valuable to them, and their businesses will stop at nothing to collect more and more pieces of you. According to research, 87 percent of the world’s most popular Web domains engage in digital tracking.

The volume of surveillance is invasive, unnecessary and it’s about time we restrict them!

As the world’s most private search engine, Startpage is excited to share that today we are expanding our privacy safeguards beyond search and Anonymous View browsing to now provide more personal data security across the internet.

Introducing the Startpage Privacy Protection extension! By installing the free browser extension, the average person can prevent hundreds of trackers and cookies on a weekly basis. Of course, the actual number per person will vary depending on each person’s individual time spent online and the number of websites they visit.

Startpage Privacy Protection is designed to be easy-to-use and gives anyone control over what personal data websites can track and store on them.

“The team has always wanted to deliver privacy products that offer protection beyond what you already get on Startpage.com,” exclaims Alex Kubiak, Startpage GM. “And now, with Startpage Privacy Protection, you will be shielded from third-party trackers and cookies on any website you visit, protecting you from data collection and advertiser retargeting. We’re very excited to bring the Startpage promise beyond just search to offer even more internet protection.”

The extension can be simply installed via browser like Chrome and Firefox and will instantly:

Set default search to Startpage, ensuring searches are private, not saved, sold, or used for profiling.
Send Global Privacy Control (Do-Not-Track) signal to visited sites with your privacy preferences.
Detect and block third party sites using special scripts to collect information about you.
Stop trackers from being placed on search activities by advertisers and third parties.
Replace social media, video, and music site tracking defaults with “click-to-activate” options.
Evaluate and display a 1 – 5 privacy rating based on each site’s privacy practices.
Displays your privacy report, a breakdown of privacy scores by percentage of total sites visited and your total number of trackers and cookies blocked.

This is the largest and most extensive feature launch Startpage has released since Anonymous View private browsing in 2018. Our team spent months researching how best to provide a simple, one-install solution for cross-Internet protection and we feel excited about where we landed. One of the most important partnerships is the integration with the EFF’s Privacy Badger which automatically learns to block invisible trackers from websites a person visits each day.

“As the CEO and Co-Founder of Startpage, it’s gratifying to see our privacy offering advance and broaden into new channels. We’ve shielded people’s personal data via the most private search engine for 15 years, helping millions of people daily, and now with the Startpage Privacy Protection extension – we have the opportunity to secure them across the entire Internet.” says Robert E.G. Beens. “I feel fortunate to offer such a comprehensive tool that helps protect people’s right to privacy and for the wonderful community that has grown around Startpage.”

Are you ready to take control of your personal data and online safety? Startpage Privacy Protection is available now and free for anyone to install. For more details on Startpage Privacy Protection, visit add.startpage.com/protection.