Online privacy. Learn why you should care about it

There are many reasons why promoting online privacy is a good idea. In fact, it is a huge topic in the news. Privacy concerns have been growing in the Western world ever since Edward Snowden revealed the extent of government surveillance programs on citizens. But there are also some practical reasons why we should care about our online privacy.

From government surveillance and data breaches to companies who collect and sell our data without our knowledge. So, there is a lot to learn about it.

Why online privacy is important and why you should care about it?

When you have seen a lot of ads on our computers, it can get annoying. We don’t want to receive whatever they are selling every time we click on a link. Now, usually, when we click on ads, the advertisement loads into our personal information. This can also happen with sponsored links.

This means companies are able to collect data about us, who we are, what we look like, when we play games — exactly who we are and not who we pretend to be. Companies are able to do this by using built-in web tools or ad networks to serve personalized advertisements.

Our Name, Age, Gender, Address, Phone Number, Email Contacts are all recorded.

While the alarm sounds over this issue, there is a lot of work still to be done. In the meantime, we can do our best to take the necessary protective measures. That’s why we should care about all the privacy implications related to online advertisements. Here are the solutions.

The first and a good solution is to follow technological standards. If our web browser is older, it is recommended to upgrade to the latest one.

Then, we should always install software from privacy-focused software houses. There are not many, but still, we will see more and more of them.

Another solution is to make use of ad-blocking solutions. After installing them, we can basically block all the advertisements.

What are the privacy concerns?

Privacy is an inherently political issue in that it speaks to the values of freedom of speech, association, and assembly. But if you add technology to the mix, even things like online privacy are subject to legal risk. And direct exposure to search engines. The EFF and Cloudflare wrote about the dangers of tech giants, here.

From a technical perspective, there are a lot of websites we visit that give out information about us in their privacy policy. For example, Spotify takes care to inform its users that they can have their music played in other ways. It’s not particularly creepy or scandalous if they’re legally obligated to do so. However, if we use services like Gmail or Facebook and sign into a dashboard that includes biasing information, we may be giving them permission to sell that information.

Beyond our email address, we’ll probably be allowing record keeping about our browsing habits and contacts that previously have not been made public. For some brands, this may include things like where we spend our time online.

As for entities that collect and sell information, these may include: search engines, ad networks, email providers, social networks, and more.

Protecting our privacy is a necessity

In this list, we will tackle the practical aspects that greatly enhance your privacy online. Let’s move forward!

1. The presence of a crowdsourced database. Researchers can analyze what readers like, what visually interesting things are shared, and follow which accounts are highly engaging. This plays a useful role in building an educated base of information that other marketers can take inspiration from.
2. Social networks. Many people who would like to use social networks like Facebook to get ideas on how to improve their work, save time. Perhaps they sell their products or earn passive income. This is the social network psychology.
3. Annoying ads. Any user would get angry if the same kind of ads keep on showing everywhere. Well, this is because advertisers follow us all the time.

Take a step now and download a Windows native ad blocker. Thus, you not only protect you online privacy, but also live a more peaceful online life.