Have you ever felt like advertising companies are following you around the internet? Maybe you were searching for a swimsuit online and then the next week you saw an ad for those same swimsuits in an unexpected place? This is a common occurrence and is not a coincidence. This is you being tracked on the internet.
If being tracked online makes you uncomfortable, you're not alone. According to the IDC, 84% of people expressed concerns about their personal information being available to advertisers. Tracking is just outright creepy, and you should not feel like you are constantly being followed around the web.
Google is the biggest tracker of them all. They keep a record of everything you have ever searched for on google.com. If that's not bad enough, they also track which websites you visit and what you click on in those websites. They are able to do this because Google's tracking software is installed on 75% of the world's top million websites. And they use all of this information to tailor ads that follow you around the internet. Go ahead and check out what Google knows about you.
This figure is from Princeton's WebTAP privacy project. It shows how many of the world's top 1 million websites have trackers installed and shows who is tracking you. This is why you see ads that follow you around the internet.
Luckily there is a way you can easily prevent this tracking.
Definitions
To understand the tools to block this tracking, you need to understand what a browser is and what a search engine is.
A Browser is an app on your phone or computer that you use to access the internet (Safari, Chrome, Firefox). It has a default search engine (usually Google).
A search engine is what you use to search for things on the internet (Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, Ecosia) that can be used with any browser.
Tracking Blocker
There are tools that will block Google's tracking services on your computer. This allows you to visit websites without any fear of being tracked. It will still give you the same internet, just without the tracking.
I personally use the Brave browser, which is based on Chrome but has better built-in protections. For example, when I use Brave and visit Amazon.com, it blocks 15 trackers by default. However, if you read to the end, I'll suggest something that will do this same thing on Chrome/Safari/Firefox without having to switch browsers entirely.
Oh and just so you know, browsing in "incognito mode" or "private mode" does nothing to prevent others from seeing what you are doing. All it does is prevent your browser from saving your history and cookies, all the other tracking still works. So, if you're using "private mode" to make an embarrassing search, Google still knows exactly what you're searching for.
Search Privacy
This is a harder one to accomplish because it requires the biggest change. Using Google search is inherently bad for privacy. There are ways to make it better (although I recommend biting the bullet and switching). If you think that continuing to use Google is a must, then I recommend deleting your google search history and disabling personalized ad tracking.
However, the better solution is to switch to a search engine that doesn't do any tracking. DuckDuckGo is the search engine that I use. They don't ever store personal information, they don't store your search history, and they don't have any ad customization. This allows you to get the same internet, but with much more peace of mind.
There is a service called "Terms of Service; Didn't Read" that reads through those long legal Terms of Service and summarizes what is important. Check out DuckDuckGo's entry compared to Google's:
For me, it's a no-brainer.
All In One Browser Extension
DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials is a browser extension (or app on mobile) that will give you all of the tracking protection mentioned above. I have it installed and it works great. And even if you decided that you still want to use Google as your search engine, you can use this extension even with Google Search as your default.
Download it and you'll instantly be a notch up security-wise, with almost no extra work from you.
- Chrome Extension (works on brave)
- Safari Extension
- Firefox Extension
- iOS App
- Android App
Conclusion
If you want a better, more secure, and private internet, you should
- Use a browser with privacy in mind (Brave, Safari, Firefox)
- Download a tracking blocker (Included with Brave, DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials)
- Switch to DuckDuckGo as your default search engine
This will give you peace of mind and security for the future. I'll end with a quote from Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, that pretty much sums it up. And if you want to learn more, read Apple's privacy explanatory doc.
Technology does not need vast troves of personal data stitched together across dozens of websites and apps in order to succeed.
Advertising existed and thrived for decades without it, and we're here today because the path of least resistance is rarely the path of wisdom.
If a business is built on misleading users on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform...
We can no longer turn a blind eye to a theory of technology that says all engagement is good engagement, the longer the better, and all with the goal of collecting as much data as possible.
- Tim Cook