Private Web Browsing
Nov. 3, 2012
Bill Myers sent this. You can benefit from his insight. He is a software programmer and a small-business trainer.
Your site visitations are being tracked, your likes, dislikes, and clicks and purchases are being used to build a profile of who you are, what you want, and what you are likely to do next.
The funny thing is, it's not only the government that's doing the tracking.
It's companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter. They justify this collection activity as a means to providing better service - i.e., placing ads and messages that are targeted specifically to you. For the most part, this tracking shouldn't cause you problems. Except when sites like Facebook automatically apply a 'like' to pages you visit - even when you haven't clicked the 'like' button. And Facebook has admitted they are doing this.
This can create some embarrassing disclosures. For example, if you are searching the internet for a solution to a health related problem or for a bankruptcy lawyer or for a new job, you might not want those kinds of things to show up in your profile or on your social network pages.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to block the tracking of your internet activity.
In the Google Chrome browser, it's call 'incognito mode'. In Internet Explorer, it's called 'inPrivate', and in Firefox it's just called 'private'.
Knowing how to turn on these incognito browsing modes, and remembering to do it when searching for products or services you don't want to show up in your history, or when using computers in public locations (libraries, internet cafes, hotel rooms), or when using a public wifi network, is important to protect your privacy.
So, if you're not yet using incognito mode, you are being tracked - and it might come back to haunt you.