Protecting Your Identity Online?

wolfman · 10 February 2006 at 5:01PM

Hi,

Just thought I'd start a thread to find out if people take an measures, what these measures are, get a few ideas going.

I basically am about to cut back the amount I use my real details, basically set up an alias, and alias email address. Obviously this doesn't apply to everything, more so forums are sites that ask for phone/address details when they aren't really necessary.

Any other ideas? Anonymous browsing? Spoofing a search engine (google)?

I also find it worrying the number of shopping sites I'm signed up to, so many I can't remember. And a lot of them store all my credit card details too. I think I read about an Egg or Cahoot card that helped provide additional protection or security....?

sra · 10 February 2006 at 5:27PM

One of the reasons I started using CustomizeGoogle was it's ability to anonymize google id and block google ananlytics.

They've never ruled out associating your search history to your gmail (and other google services) and it absolutely astounds me that people would be okay with this.

The way Google are going with some of the services they'll soon be rolling out, and Yahoo the way they're buying up services, soon they will know EVERYTHING about you.

wolfman · 10 February 2006 at 5:37PM

Yeah I have to confess to having a gmail account. Great value, but at what cost. Mine's permanently logged in too so I'd imagine all of my searches are related to my account.

Hmmm, damn I'm a real Opera fan. I still use Firefox for development, think I'll give that extension a go.

Blackjack_Davy · 10 February 2006 at 6:58PM

I've got to admit I delete everything in my cookies and temp internet/offline files at least once times a week for security's sake.

I used to use an anonymous proxy server which used to be brilliant when they started had no problem keeping up with my broadband but then they started offering endless packages and customer service and speeds went down the pan.

Am I paranoid? Possibly.

Chippy_Minton · 10 February 2006 at 7:53PM

I recently discovered the concern over Google's use of cookies to track your searches. However, there are a couple of methods you can use to disable the cookie and circumvent the tracking:

1. How to set Google preferences - and still disable Google's cookie!
2. Anonymizing Google's Cookie

Alternatively, use a Google scraper like Scroogle, which also has the advantage of removing Google's sponsored links from the search results.

Also of interest is https://www.google.com/ie, a bare-bones interface which returns only page titles.

For more background information see Google Watch and Wikipedia - Scroogle.

sra · 10 February 2006 at 8:45PM

google's approach seems to be to collect as much information about everyone as possible and never delete it if possible.

Rember how there was no Delete button on Gmail - and they were reluctant to even remove it from there system even if you did delete it.

Look at the API for the Google Reader

Google Reader's feed subscription list contains a user's current feed subscriptions as well as past deleted subscriptions.
http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/archives/2005/12/google_reader_a.html

Protecting Your Identity Online?

Comments

Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply

🚀 Getting Started

Categories

Is this how you want to be seen?

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free