Infographic byWordStream Internet Marketing

Take Control of Your Internet Privacy

Here are  3 simple steps to control your privacy on the Internet:

1. Never post personal information on the Internet.  Once information is on the web, it can be copied and shared without your permission.  Once posted, you’ve lost control over where it can appear.  What may seem harmless can lead to the wrong people having your information.
2. Use an anonymous proxy to hide your IP address.  Your IP address is one identifier that can lead back to you.  By hiding it you can throw would be stalkers off your trail.
3. Clear your cookies.  While normally cookies are not harmful, they do provide information back to websites you visit about your habits on their website.  This may or may not be something you care about.  It depends on the websites you visit.

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As was mentioned before though, cookies can also be dangerous. Instead of the helpful cookies mentioned above, you can possibly have malicious cookies. These are cookies installed on your computer either by a hacker or a bad website. Through this, they can hack into your folders and steal your passwords, or simply try and track you back to your real-life location. Even worse, these cookies could contain viruses that are planted directly on to your hard drive, and your virus scanner might not even recognize it. These can either be installed to try and steal identifying data about you, or simply with malicious intent to crash your system.

Either way, cookies are archaic technology these days. They are a relic of dial up times, and simply haven’t been removed. Websites often have log-in services that allow you to save your preferences and easily load them, and the speed advantage is a moot point due to today’s lightening fast Internet connections. The point is, cookies have been played out and might be considered a dangerous thing. EPIC, the big privacy organization, proposes that all cookies are banned due to their Internet privacy risks.

While this is a noble cause on their part, it is hard to move the status quo of legislation. They could fight for years and years before they actually got something changed, even though they are such a widespread program. In the meantime, try out an anonymous proxy to eat away (no pun intended) all of your cookie worries. Every anonymous proxy has a built in blocking system, not for websites, but for pieces of identifying information trying to access your computer. You can select to block cookies and be done with them, and be surfing anonymous while you are at it.

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