We’re entering another holiday shopping season, and while you’re browsing around on the internet looking for thoughtful presents for friends and loved ones, it’s also a good time to give yourself the gift of privacy. Your research and shopping behavior has the potential to be a huge gift to the advertisers collecting data about your habits. If you’re not using Firefox, every weird search for every weird gift could get packaged up in a marketplace where companies and advertisers will be buying, selling and trading this data about you in their own holiday shopping bonanza. Using Firefox is the preventative measure you need during the holiday season (but really anytime you’re shopping online) to protect you from two potential problems:
Problem 1. You get profiled by the interests of friends and loved ones
As you’re searching for and purchasing gifts for others, like maybe your “prepper” uncle or pregnant cousin, trackers are going to add these areas of interest to your profile, and target you for things based on interests you don’t actually have. You might get followed by things like:
- Never-ending ads for nipple butter just because you got something nice for your pregnant cousin.
- A bombardment of ads for guns, ready to eat meals and other prepper lifestyle items because you got your uncle that camouflage kevlar bathrobe he always wanted.
- A constant flow of ads for expensive wine (even though you’re sober) because you got your sister one of those wine accessories she wanted.
It’s a double-whammy of ads that are irrelevant and frustrating, as well as a glaring reminder of how much companies are tracking and targeting you all the time.
Problem 2: Surprise gifts get spoiled by ads that reveal your searches
Being targeted by ads related to your shopping can ruin surprises. The quintessential example is searching for an engagement ring, and having ads for engagement rings follow you around. One of those pops up while your partner is looking over your shoulder or borrowing your phone or laptop, and oops! You can imagine how this could happen with any thoughtful gift in any other kind of relationship as well.
Firefox protects you
Firefox blocks trackers automatically — over 12 billion every day — so more of what you search for and click on stays private, advertisers know less about you, and the number of these unwanted ads following you around from site to site is reduced.
Give the trackers and advertisers following you around the internet a big, fat lump of coal this shopping season. Download and start using Firefox today.
You can also read more about Firefox Privacy Protections, and how they work to protect you.
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