Tips For Better Online Privacy

Your Personal Information is Being Collected Automatically

• “Big Data” brokers make a profit by compiling your info and selling it to others.

• Your information has become an invaluable resource for retailers, advertising firms, marketing databases—and unfortunately also for identity thieves, stalkers, and other unsavory characters.

Fortunately, there is a lot you can do to protect your online privacy.

Online Privacy Primer

Everything you need to know about how online privacy works.

How does personal information get online?

• A lot of your personal information gets online without you doing anything. Ex: Public records have been digitized.

• If you’ve ever purchased real estate, donated to a political campaign, or had a run-in with the law, that information is likely available online.

• If you’ve ever used a grocery store discount card, chances are your purchase information is also part of some online consumer marketing database.

Your Digital Footprint• Wherever we go on the Internet,

we leave a trace of ourselves.• The links you click on and the

sites you visit record information about you.

• Many sites track your complete browser history.

• Social media sites collect detailed information about how you interact and what you click on.

What exactly is out there?Data brokers will

usually have:• Home addresses • Landline phone

numbers• Cell phone

numbers • Job information • Relatives’ names • Past addresses

On more sophisticated sites:• Home values and photos • Email addresses • Marriage and divorce records

• Photos and videos • Social media profiles • Dating site profiles • Religious information • Projected annual income

Online Privacy: Essential First Steps

9 million Americans’ identities are stolen each year.

—FTC—

What everyone should do to protect their online privacy.

• Review social media privacy settings. Social media sites change their privacy policies all the time. Be sure to check your privacy settings.

• Limit past posts on Facebook. Facebook has a “Activity Log” feature. From the Activity Log, you can click to “Limit Past Posts” to stop posts from the past from showing up.

• Be wary of questionnaires. Every time you offer up a piece of personal information, it will likely end up in an online database somehwere.

• Find out and opt out. Most data brokers allow you to remove your info, although you may need to submit a form or provide proof of identity.

• Enable “Do Not Track” on your browser. There are a number of built-in and third-party “do not track” add-ons for the most popular Web browsers. Install and enable them.

• Check regularly. Even if you’ve opted out of every online data broker, your personal information could still end up online.

• Automate the process. It can be tedious to stay on top of your online privacy. That’s why ReputationDefender offers many privacy protection tools.

Questions About Online Privacy?

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