Internet Privacy

Online privacy has become an issue for many users, as more websites log private user information for the purpose of marketing research. Internet users can achieve different levels of privacy, depending on the desire to remain anonymous when surfing the web.

Let’s take a look on privacy risks may arise when browsing the internet:

Internet Service Providers

When you surf the web, all information goes through your ISP’s servers and being logged. ISPs keep these logs for some time in case if authorities request it. In special cases authorities can overlook all your internet traffic.

IP address

Many web sites use IP logging of their usage. You can get over this by using anonymous proxy server.

Data logging

Many web sites, computer software and operating systems use data logging. This information could be, for example, times when the computer was in use, visited URLs, the lists of recently opened applications and documents and other information. Due to the security holes this information could be available to third person.

Cookies

Although cookies are very commonly used by many websites, they can also be used with malicious intentions. Cookies are commonly placed on user’s computer without notification. The original intention of cookies was that only the site that placed them could retrieve them. But some web sites can use cookies to find out a specific user’s browsing habits. The easiest way of preventing this is to completely disable cookies in your web browser. Keep in mind that this could limit functionality of some sites.

Tracking

Tracking is a process of retrieving information about a user’s surfing habits. Internet marketing research companies use this information to discover general internet surfing habits. Additionally, some organizations set up honeypot websites about controversial issues to collect such information.