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Sunday, 2 June 2019

Is trying to protect our online privacy a lost cause?

Is trying to protect our online privacy a lost cause? These days, trying to protect yourself against internet trackers is like playing a game of whac-a-mole, an episode of the WSJ’s Personal Technology suggests (watch, runtime: 4:27). “Knock out one way for advertisers to track you, and they quickly find another way to do it,” Joanna Stern tells us. This is all coming despite Google and Facebook launching new initiatives in the past few weeks to guarantee internet privacy. Well we could at least try. Here are a handful of things to do:

  • Use a privacy-focused browser (like Firefox) or download the Privacy Badger extension if you use Chrome
  • Turn off Google’s Location History Tool on your computer and/or phone. On Facebook, kill everything under ad settings
  • Make sure to turn off your Advertising ID in your iPhone or Android privacy settings
  • Turn off Location Tracking on apps that don’t need your location.

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