Internet Privacy

The Internet is an open network and is uses by many people for many applications like email, Browsing, Instant messaging and increasing for telephone calls (VOIP).

Using each of these services involves privacy risks. What is at risk depends on what Internet services you use.

So the first step in privacy protection is really to list what you actually use the Internet for:

• Do you use the Internet to visits web sites?
• Do you use the Internet for email?
• Do you use the Internet for online banking?
• Do you use the Internet for shopping?
• Do you use the Internet to make telephone calls?
• Do you use the Internet to chat to others?
• Do you use the Internet for music downloads?
• etc

General Guidelines for Protecting Your Privacy and Data

Internet services like email, Instant messaging etc involve data transfer across the internet. In most case data transfer is unprotected meaning that anyone (at the ISPs and network access points) has access to this data.

Other services like online banking use encrypted connections are are designed to be secure.

The number one rule when using the Internet is:

If you are not sure that the service you are using is secure then treat it as in secure and do not send any private data over it. By personal data I mean bank account codes, passwords etc see Personal Identifiable Information.

Private Versus Public Communications

Email is generally a one to one type of communication whereas Instant messaging, online forums are one to many types of communication. Email although not a secure system is considerably more secure than an online forum.

I would therefore never reveal my telephone number on an online forum, but I would happily send it to someone I knew via email. So be wary of giving away private information but don't become paranoid.

Browser Privacy

The web browser (internet explorer, Firefox etc) is the number one software program used to access the Internet. Regardless of the browser it stores information on you computer about the web sites you visit, including the passwords you use to access them when required.

To protect your browser privacy you can manually delete the temporary Internet files that contain this data or employ Privacy Protection Software. that does it automatically.

Not only does your browser save information about you online activities but so do the search engines. (see search engine watch article at bottom of the page)

Spyware

Spyware  is what most people think about when they think about Internet Privacy. It is (in my opinion) more of a nuisance than a menace. That doesn't mean that you can ignore it. I would recommend that you install a spyware detector and run it frequently and take sensible precautions to stop you system collecting spyware in the first place by:

• Only installing software from recognised companies
• Be wary of freeware/shareware. There are many good freeware/shareware programs on the Internet and I use them myself but make sure that the ones you use come from a trusted source and search for and read some reviews of the software before installing it.
• Be especially wary of Free Music, emoticon downloads especially the ones that want to install a toolbar.
• Be wary of downloading software from any site full of banner ads and popups.

Email

Email is generally considered to be a very insecure system. Email messages have to go through many other computers before reaching their destination and at any stage can be copied and monitored.

It is therefore advised that you do not send extremely confidential messages via email unless you take the steps of using encryption.

See Email Security.

Instant Messaging

This is becoming more an more popular and will maybe one day be more popular than email. Like email it is generally considered to be a very insecure system, and because it is usually used for talking to more than person simultaneously it should only contain information that you would be prepared to put on the front page on a newspaper.

Related Articles and resources:

• Why you should Keep your Email Account Details Private
• computer privacy/security
• Internet and Computer Privacy
• Search Engine watch article-Private Searches Versus Personally Identifiable Searches