How to protect private information?

If you use the Internet, then your private life is under the threat of intrusion. Every time you browse a Web-page, containing a banner advertising, type in your name applying to a web site or fill in a registration form in a software that operates in the Internet, your private information can be collected, summarized and then sold to anyone.

Who needs your private information and wherefore

To realize this, it’ll be enough to consider sites of some advertising firms, circulating banner advertising via Internet. In a report for the year 2006 of a huge advertising network Double Click the information is as follows:

“DART (Dynamic Advertising Reporting and Targeting) warrants that the advertisers will find their perfect consumers among hundreds of millions of Internet surfers. The system is able to search out potential consumers, taking into account dozens of parameters including geographical area, language and scope of activity”.

Recording users’ IP addresses, DART software delivers purposeful advertising to the consumers and then provides a report about advertising campaign for its efficiency monitoring.

Naviant – the other marketing company operating in the Internet - asserts that disposes of even more detailed information about consumers.

Internet advertising agencies boast of the ability to collect reliable information about us. Advertisers will pay much more if the are sure that their ads will be displayed on the screens of their potential customers. It implies that advertisers, web sites and advertising agencies make efforts to get detailed information about you: age, place of residence, consumer’s choice, marital status, children and other information that you, probably, wouldn’t like to report to strangers.

The other reason why companies want to know not only the web sites you visit but also who you are is that almost everybody loathes spam (unauthorized emails). However, a lot of Internet haunters who hate spam, would not mind to receive advertising matters by post. If it is noticed in the company that you visit its web site and it is possible to find you postal address, then you’ll be sent advertising materials by post: they will be thrown away less likely.

How can we be identified in a flow of many millions of Internet surfers?

How do the sites’ and advertising agencies’ owners find out our Internet preferences and recognize us online? One of the simplest ways is to read an IP address, 32-bit binary number, denoting the number of your computer in the Internet.

Though using IP addresses is convenient to identify some of web users, this tool is unreliable. Users connecting to the Internet via dial-up connections (session access) can have different IP addresses every time they are connected to the Internet. All the computers located behind the firewall – the facility created to protect the local network from uninvited guests – sometimes seem to be users with the same IP address. Therefore for precise surfer and their computer identification Cookie files are used. What are Cookie Files?

Briefly about Cookie Files

There can be Cookie Files from any site – a text line identifying a user and describing a transaction – on its computer. Cookie Files contain accounting information like domain name it was sent from, expiration date and you private information. There are two kinds of Cookie Files: session Cookie Files, which are deleted every time the browser finishes its work and constant Cookie Files which remain in the computer for months or even years. Online stores apply both kinds: for example, in a session Cookie File information about a particular shopping is held and constant Cookie Files enable to recognize the user when he/she attends the site anew.

Do you know what the site you trust consist of?

A web page can consist of different stuff, received from different servers. A page of your favorite news agency can contain a text from one server, images – from the other and ads – from several servers. HTML, used to create a page, shows to a web browser how to get data from different servers and gather them into a page that will be displayed on your computer.

It is essential to know!

The point is that any server of a web site can send a Cookie File to your computer and later call for it. Consequently, if you visited two pages (even if they were on different sites) containing the advertising of one and the same agency, it can be found out that you switched from one site to the other. In this way advertising agencies get to know about user’s preferences.

How to defend yourself from shadowing

The most reliable way to protect yourself from shadowing by means of Cookie Files is to switch them off. But unfortunately, it can prevent you from visiting many web sites engaged in business. You simply won’t be allowed to these sites unless you permit to save Cookie Files to you computer. The other good and reliable way is to use specialized software for Cookie Files clearance, such as Clean Space. This program allows deleting Cookies directly during browser working. You can set the program in the way that Cookies from particular sites will be immediately deleted and will be kept from the approved ones.

Afterword

Many of us suppose or at least hope that the Government will protect consumers from collecting their private data. However, in contrast to the countries of Western Europe where unambiguous consent of a person should be received before delivering his/her private information to other persons, buy or sell it, there are few laws in the US restricting permissions for firms to work with the private information. As regards the existent laws – for example Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) – they are sadly known for their thoughtless. According to FCRA everyone who carries on business with you has a right to apply to a loan office and inquire a report about your credits where your credit borrowings, home address, telephone number, your number in social maintenance system SSN and other information are listed. (Even companies, which do not settle bargains with you, can get some part if this information – that is why unbidden credit card offers overfill mailboxes of the customers with good credit history).

Your private information is your own capital. You and only you can decide who has a right to know it. As long as the Government does not make attempts to protect consumers, protection of your private life is your problem...

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