Online Privacy and Your Personal Information

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard about recent violations to online privacy. Whether it’s recording searches from our personal Wi-Fi connections, or building profiles of our online searches, websites are, more and more, compromising our personal information.

A proactive approach to your own online privacy is the only way to protect yourself when you go online. The good news is online privacy protection is easy to find, and with the software, tools, and reliable technologies that are already out there, you should be able to find a cost-effective solution to protect yourself.

Online Privacy Protection: The Right Software, Tools, and Tips There are many things you can do to help protect your online privacy. These days, we all know not to give out our personal information to anyone, but you may be compromising your own privacy without even knowing it. Make sure that you are following these five practical tips:

• Clear your memory cache after browsing.
• Use virus-scanning software, and make sure it's always up to date.
• Get a separate account for personal email, encrypt your email messages, and use an anonymous remailer.
• Teach your kids that giving out personal information to strangers online is the same as giving it to "real-world" strangers.
• Make sure that the file and printer sharing options on your computer are turned off.

A Final Step to Give Yourself Online Privacy Protection In addition to the five steps that we highlighted above, you should also include online privacy software as a tool in your arsenal. These types of services provide anonymous and secure access to websites, protecting you, and your personal information, from cybercriminals who may be watching your every online move.

A good example of this type of service is Anonymizer Universal, an online privacy tool that provides secure and anonymous access to all your online destinations. In addition, your email, IM, Web browsing, Wi-Fi—all of the things that you do online—are protected and secure from the dangers of cybercrimes.

Protecting yourself online is just a smart thing to do. Make sure that you are prepared, and fully understand the ramifications of going online without privacy protection for everything that you do.