{"id":62863,"date":"2017-04-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foxtail\/2017\/04\/27\/the-internet-baggage-you-didnt-know-you-had\/"},"modified":"2017-04-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T00:00:00","slug":"the-internet-baggage-you-didnt-know-you-had","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/en\/firefox\/the-internet-baggage-you-didnt-know-you-had\/","title":{"rendered":"The Internet Baggage You Didn\u2019t Know You Had (And What To Do About It)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For a long time, internet privacy seemed to only concern the conspiracy theorists and worriers among us. But these days it\u2019s getting harder to tell the difference between reality and an episode of <em>Black Mirror<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings us back to here and now, a time when government surveillance and online tracking isn\u2019t a work of fiction anymore, but rooted in real life. But what does all that info \u2013 your favorite sites, purchase history, places where you lived, articles you\u2019ve read, liked, shared, commented on \u2013 add up to anyway?<\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I literally did that today.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Charlie Brooker (@charltonbrooker) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/charltonbrooker\/status\/825124601453740033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 27, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><\/center><em>Charlie Brooker is the creator of Black Mirror, a dark and satirical sci-fi TV series about the unanticipated consequences of new technologies.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If you thought that online tracking couldn\u2019t happen to you, think again. Here are just a few pieces of \u201cinternet baggage\u201d you didn\u2019t know you had:<\/p>\n<h2>1. Third-Party Sites<\/h2>\n<p>Has loading web pages felt like a drag lately? Online trackers are probably to blame. Using <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/en-US\/firefox\/addon\/lightbeam\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lightbeam<\/a><\/strong>, a Firefox add-on that helps expose online tracking, it\u2019s easy \u2013 and surprising \u2013 to see that visiting a <em>single website<\/em> actually opens a door for dozens upon dozens of third-party sites that happily tag along to every page you navigate to.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lPoqN325lKY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<em>A few years back we made a video of grandparents reacting to data tracking. They weren\u2019t pleased to say the least. (So we showed them <a href=\"https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/en-US\/firefox\/addon\/lightbeam\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lightbeam<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For now, these third-party sites mainly exist to gather enough information to serve ads and make some money from click-throughs. The more relevant an ad is to you, the more likely you\u2019ll want to \u201cLearn More\u201d and \u201cBuy Now.\u201d To some, having ads that are in tune with what you\u2019re searching for probably seems like a plus. Regardless, you should still have control over what advertisers know about you, if they know anything about you at all, which can be tough when web trackers operate in the background \u2013 out of sight.<\/p>\n<p>One way to dial down the creepiness factor is to use <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mozilla.org\/en-US\/firefox\/private-browsing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Private Browsing with Tracking Protection<\/a><\/strong> right in Firefox, which prevents companies from tracking your search history across multiple sites. When you browse in a Private Window, Firefox doesn\u2019t save the pages you visit, cookies, searches or temporary files. It\u2019s not a bulletproof solution, but for everyday web browsing it might just give you some peace of mind.<\/p>\n<h2>2. Your Web History, Yourself<\/h2>\n<p>We all have personal info, like our phone numbers, recent YouTube likes, or maybe even that angsty Myspace page you made years ago, that we\u2019d rather erase from memory \u2013 and the internet.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, that\u2019s just not how the web works. As our own privacy and engagement manager Stacy Martin pointed out recently: \u201cIt&#8217;s difficult to erase [your data] on the internet. There\u2019s a common saying in the privacy world that \u2018The internet is written in ink, not pencil.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-123 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/278\/files\/2017\/04\/Internet_Baggage_internet_written_in_ink.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"660\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As a result, every byte of data you share gets logged and archived. Forever. Identifying details that you probably don\u2019t even remember providing years ago. Things like your birthday, home address, party affiliation. Names of family members and where <em>they<\/em> live. Take a sec to look yourself up on a data broker, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spokeo<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anywho.com\/whitepages\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anywho.com<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/support.whitepages.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Whitepages<\/a>, and you\u2019ll get a sense of just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Then take the necessary steps to remove yourself from those sites if you\u2019re not into being listed there.<\/p>\n<p>If you use Google products, you can create an archive of your data with <a href=\"https:\/\/takeout.google.com\/settings\/takeout\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Takeout<\/a> to get a sense of the info that the tech behemoth has on you. Just bear in mind that downloads are \u00fcber time-consuming (it\u2019s a lot of data), and this is more of a visibility thing. Just because you have a copy of your data does <em>not<\/em> mean it\u2019s erased from Google\u2019s archives.<\/p>\n<h2>3. The Price of Your Private Data<\/h2>\n<p>Online trackers have long operated in a Wild West-like environment with few consumer protections in place (most sites don\u2019t ask for permission to track you, for example). So every time you sign online, you implicitly agree to direct and indirect surveillance by the sites you visit. Sounds shady to begin with, but it gets worse: soon, internet service providers (ISPs) won\u2019t just be able to see your search history and browsing habits, but they may be able to <strong>sell that information<\/strong>. All that internet baggage you didn\u2019t know you had could now go to the highest bidder. While <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2017\/03\/31\/isp-claim-wont-sell-browsing-history\/#R5507oMzbiq0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">some ISPs have said they won&#8217;t sell your data<\/a>, they&#8217;ve been pushing back on privacy rules for years. Do you really want to put your browsing history in their hands?<\/p>\n<p>So you\u2019re probably wondering: Am I doomed? The answer is: not if <em>we<\/em> have anything to say about it! For some, ignorance is bliss and it\u2019s easy to turn a blind eye to what you can\u2019t see. But for the rest of us (like you and other concerned web denizens) knowing where the weaknesses are is exactly the first step in working towards a safer internet for everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For a long time, internet privacy seemed to only concern the conspiracy theorists and worriers among us. But these days it\u2019s getting harder to tell the difference between reality and an episode of Black Mirror. Which brings us back to here and now, a time when government surveillance and online tracking isn\u2019t a work of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1448,"featured_media":50123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Internet Baggage You Didn\u2019t Know You Had (And What To Do About It)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What does all that info \u2013 your favorite sites, places where you lived, articles you\u2019ve read, liked, shared, commented on \u2013 add up to anyway?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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