July Newsletter: Internet Privacy Changes

Just because enhanced privacy restrictions were not enacted by the government earlier this year does not mean you have no control at all.

Let’s take a look at the websites where you have definite control. Google, Facebook, and Amazon are constantly under scrutiny for collecting information about their users.  By visiting maps.google.com/timeline you can learn a lot about what Google is tracking.

Luckily, these sites include all the tools that you need to opt-out, privatize your posts, and stop their data collection.

If there are any other sites that you would like us to examine, please call or email us.  We will see if there are ways to opt out of your ads.

Stopping your ISP (Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon) from gathering this information is a lot trickier. The reason this becomes trickier is how the information is gathered. While Google, Facebook, and Amazon can only judge your interests by what you click and type on their sites, your ISP monitors ALL TRAFFIC ON ALL WEBSITES YOU EVER CONNECT TO. This includes any incognito mode surfing on Firefox/Chrome. Luckily there are still ways to protect yourself . . .

This Popular Mechanics article suggests that the best way to handle ISP information gathering is to go to them directly and opt out.  Grundig IT feels the same way, but you do need to be proactive to ensure that they don’t opt you back in, In some cases, as with Comcast, you cannot opt out of all of their information gathering ways.

Opting out is not always a guarantee, but there are smaller Internet Service Providers available that opposed the repeal of these information gathering standards. Moving to a smaller ISP that values your privacy is one of the best ways to not only protect yourself, but also to take power away the big Internet providers.  A list of smaller ISPs is found at the bottom of this Electronic Frontier Foundation article

The final, and most complex option, is to establish a VPN for all of your connections. There are a number of VPN hosting services that will help privatize your connection. The way a VPN works is that it creates an encrypted tunnel for all of your connections.  When using a VPN service, the only thing your ISP can see is that you’re connected to your VPN. Please note that most “free” VPN companies will have their own targeted ads to pay for the bandwidth you’re using on their end. You can easily find VPN services for 30-50 dollars a year that will set you up with a private VPN connection.

Here is a list of further articles that you may find interesting regarding online security:

 www.pcworld.com/article/3184767/security/three-privacy-tools-that-block-your-internet-provider-from-tracking-you.html