Email forwarding and aliases
DuckDuckGo Email Protection privacy rating
Free email alias service from DuckDuckGo that gives out @duck.com addresses and forwards mail to an existing inbox after removing email trackers.
Summary
DuckDuckGo Email Protection scores 34 out of 100 (grade F) on the email forwarding and aliases criteria. It meets 3 of 16 criteria: no trackers or telemetry, TLS configuration and no stored mail. It partly meets open source, no ads or data sales and security headers. It does not meet independent audit, transparency report, tells users about requests, end-to-end encryption, open protocols, custom domains, sign up without personal data, mail transport security, Sender Rewriting Scheme and ARC sealing. It is based in the United States: Five Eyes member; subject to the US CLOUD Act. Automated tests: SSL Labs grade A+ and Mozilla HTTP Observatory grade B.
Score 34 out of 100. How scoring works
Criteria
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Partial
Open source Weight 3 of 3
Is all the source code needed to run the product public?
The DuckDuckGo browser extension that creates Duck Addresses is Apache-2.0, but the forwarding service is closed source.
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Yes
No trackers or telemetry Weight 3 of 3
Are the website and apps free of third-party trackers, with any analytics anonymous and any telemetry off by default?
The privacy policy states that DuckDuckGo does not track users, and the website loads no third-party trackers.
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Partial
No ads or data sales Weight 2 of 3
Is the product funded without advertising, ad targeting or selling user data?
Email Protection is free and shows no ads. DuckDuckGo is funded by search ads based on the search query rather than user profiles.
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No
Independent audit Weight 2 of 3
Has an independent security or privacy audit been published within the last three years?
No independent audit is published.
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No
Transparency report Weight 2 of 3
Does the provider regularly publish how many government and legal requests it receives and how it responds?
No transparency report or government request policy is published.
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No
Tells users about requests Weight 1 of 3
Does the provider promise to tell users about requests for their data, unless a court forbids it?
No published policy on notifying users about data requests.
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No
End-to-end encryption Weight 2 of 3
Can mail be end-to-end encrypted so that the provider cannot read message contents?
Not supported. Forwarded mail is not encrypted end to end.
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Yes
No stored mail Weight 3 of 3
Is forwarded mail passed through without being written to disk?
Mail is processed in memory to remove trackers and forwarded without being written to disk.
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No
Open protocols Weight 2 of 3
Can any standard app connect over IMAP, POP3, SMTP, CalDAV or CardDAV, without extra software?
No IMAP or SMTP access. Mail is forwarded to an existing inbox and replies go through the Duck Address.
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No
Custom domains Weight 1 of 3
Can mail be sent and received with your own domain?
Not supported. Addresses are on duck.com.
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No
Sign up without personal data Weight 2 of 3
Can an account be created without a phone number or another email address?
An existing email address is required to receive forwarded mail.
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No
Sender Rewriting Scheme Weight 2 of 3
Is the envelope sender rewritten with SRS when mail is forwarded, so forwarded mail keeps passing SPF?
No published documentation on SRS for forwarded mail.
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No
ARC sealing Weight 1 of 3
Does the provider validate and add ARC (RFC 8617) signatures, so authentication results survive forwarding?
No published documentation on ARC signing or validation.
Automated tests
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Yes
TLS configuration Weight 2 of 3
Does the website pass the Qualys SSL Labs test with a grade of A or better?
Grade A+
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Partial
Security headers Weight 1 of 3
Does the website pass the Mozilla HTTP Observatory test with a grade of A or better?
Grade B (75/100+)
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Not tested yet
Modern web standards Weight 1 of 3
Does the website score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl website test?
Not tested yet.
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Not tested yet
Email security standards Weight 2 of 3
Does the mail domain score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl email test?
Not tested yet.
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No
Mail transport security Weight 3 of 3
Does the mail domain enforce encrypted, authenticated delivery with MTA-STS, DANE, DNSSEC, TLS-RPT and an enforced DMARC policy?
Passes: SPF, DMARC quarantine, TLS-RPT. Missing: MTA-STS missing, DNSSEC, DANE none.
Email standards
- Yes: Mail serversMXsmtp-inbound1.duck.com
- Yes: RFC 7208 sender policySPFpublished
- Yes: RFC 7489. Quarantine or reject counts as enforcedDMARCp=quarantine
- No: RFC 8461 strict transport securityMTA-STSmissing
- Yes: RFC 8460 TLS failure reportsTLS-RPTpublished
- No: RFC 4033 signed DNSDNSSECnot validated
- No: RFC 7672 TLSA records on MX hostsDANEnone
- No: Brand logo record (not scored)BIMInone
- No: RFC 6186 and RFC 8314 service records (not scored)SRVnone
IMAP
Could not test: No server found (set a host in the rating file or publish RFC 6186 SRV records)
POP3
Could not test: No server found (set a host in the rating file or publish RFC 6186 SRV records)
SMTP submission
Could not test: No server found (set a host in the rating file or publish RFC 6186 SRV records)
Capabilities are what each server advertises before login. How these tests work