Stop Companies from Tracking You Online

We’ve written a lot about how big tech companies make money by gathering and selling your personal information. You have to worry about data gathering by apps, by data brokers, by people search sites, and by social media sites. The fact is that the majority of today's websites use tracking technology to collect information about you and your behaviors online, creating compounding risks to your privacy and identity. Some of the tracking is done just to improve the performance or usability of the website, but a lot of it is used to build a detailed profile of you.

Browser privacy settings such as “Do Not Track” and incognito mode, may seem like the solution, but in fact, don’t offer solid protection against online tracking, but now there’s a technology that you can use to block tracking when you’re online. Let’s take a look at how tracking happens and how you can stop it before it starts.

Tracking is a Win-Lose Proposition

Data tracking makes tech companies billions of dollars each year in advertising revenue alone, so they win every time you go online. And we do mean every time: 79 percent of websites use trackers to collect user data. And sometimes these sites even continue to collect information about you after you leave the website. Pretty creepy, right? They know where you are, what you buy, what device you have, your interests, tastes, and your political or religious affiliations. As if that wasn’t enough, tracking can also reveal medical, financial, personal or family problems you’re struggling with. They know all of this and they get paid for it too.

Meanwhile, tracking is a losing proposition for you, the consumer. Yes, you might receive advertising that’s better targeted to your interests, but at what price? We can think of several. Firstly, you have no visibility or control over the information that’s being gathered about you—information that you may prefer to keep private. Secondly, tech companies don’t do background checks on ad buyers or buyers of personal information—and why would they if there are no legal ramifications, that would just slow down their revenue. So, targeted phishing campaigns can be disguised as advertising, or your profile could be bought by identity thieves, scammers, and other criminals looking for well-targeted victims. And lastly, there’s the risk that these companies will have data breaches, releasing private or potentially embarrassing details about you or putting your personal information directly into criminal hands.

Stop Tracking in its Tracks

Tracking is done through software “scripts” (pieces of code) that are downloaded and run in your browser when you visit a website. To prevent tracking, you need a tracking blocker, an internet browser extension that prevents these scripts from capturing your online activities. (Tracking is also done through “cookies,” unique identifiers that websites plant in your browser. Google has committed to phasing out cookies, but there are plenty of other ways you can be tracked. Most tracking blockers, including the IDX one, block more than cookies.)

Stand-alone tracking blockers typically cost $5–$12 per month. Depending on the blocker, the user needs to do some initial setup to configure the blocking. If you’re an IDX Privacy member, you already have an advanced Tracking Blocker included with your suite of privacy features. The IDX Privacy Tracking Blocker can be added to desktop versions of Chrome (Google) or Edge (Microsoft). Tracking blockers for your mobile devices are available through the IDX Privacy app. Once installed, the tracking blocker detects tracker scripts and stops them from activating when you visit a website on which they are loaded, drastically limiting how much of your personal information can be collected.

Choosing the Right Layers of Protection

Companies have many ways of collecting your personal information, so you need multiple layers of protection to stop them. Using a VPN helps to prevent tracking of your location, as well as protecting the data you transmit. (IDX’s VPN, Safe WiFi, is included in the IDX Privacy product suite.) You can use ad blocker software to block online ads that could attempt to download malware or to phish for personal information. You can also use the pop-up blocker built into your browser to prevent unwanted pop-up windows from displaying.

All these layers are helpful, but an advanced tracking blocker is one of the most powerful privacy tools you can have because it stops data gathering before it even starts. Sure, you might miss out on a targeted ad with an online sale here and there. But when you’re being tracked, you don’t know how much personal information you’re giving up in exchange for those occasional bargains. So, get a tracking blocker and, if you want online deals, just sign up for sales alerts from vendors you trust. Because no matter how good the deal, giving up your privacy is too high a price!