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Four
Ways To Take Back Your Privacy - PC World Magazine.
RESTORE
YOUR PRIVACY by taking control of the information that
businesses and other parties can access about you.
OPT OUT: Companies can share a lot of your data - unless you
tell them
to stop. The Center for Democracy and Technology offers an excellent
free service at http://opt-out.cdt.org/
that links to online opt-out forms for numerous businesses, and that
can generate opt-out letters for you to mail to firms that lack online
options. Also, when signing up for any new service, look for the check
box that refers to sending you special offers and be sure you're not
automatically signed up.
PROTECT YOUR CALL RECORDS: Contact your cell provider and set
up a
password on your account. You can also ask the provider to remove call
details from your bill to keep others from seeing them (though you'll
lose them, too). To check if you've been compromised, ask if the firm
has released your records or if anyone has activated an online account
in your name.
READ THE POLICY: Reading privacy policies or End-User License
Agreements (EULAs) is like flossing - we know we should, but we usually
don't bother. the free EULAlyzer from Javacool Software find.pcworld.com/52876
makes the task much easier by examining the policy or EULA for you and
searching for keywords, such as "Third Party." The software then rates
what it finds to let you know which ones to beware of.
SURF AND SEARCH ANONYMOUSLY: One quick-and-dirty
Google
cookie anonymizer at find.pcworld.com/52878
removes your unique identifier from the Google cookie. Know that using
it will clear any Google preferences you've set, like how many search
results display per page. Also, you'll find a guide to many resources
for anonymously surfing the internet at find.pcworld.com/52880.