Get a safety ’Net
How to foil snoops under new Web rules
There are limited ways consumers can protect themselves from having their Web histories collected and sold by their Internet service providers, who are about to get government-sanctioned free reign over their Internet traffic.
The White House said Wednesday that President Trump plans to sign a repeal of the Obama administration’s broadband-privacy rules, which would have required companies to get consent from consumers before they sell their sensitive information to other companies.
“The market for Internet users’ data is extremely opaque,” explained Peter Eckersley, the chief computer scientist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“ISPs are making billions of dollars every year by selling data about their customers, but we don’t know which ISPs, and how much they’re selling, and which kind of data is fetching the highest prices, because all those transactions are conducted in secret.”
He warned that even voluntarily “opting out” of targeted advertising with an ISP doesn’t mean that a user’s data isn’t being tracked.
But consumers have some options for shielding their browsing history from broadband providers.
Laptop users can install software like “HTTPS Everywhere” and “Privacy Badger,” and use that in addition to a Tor browser, a downloadable network that allows people to surf the Web anonymously.
“Tor browser is a very secure tool that bounces your traffic several times around the world before it goes to your destination,” he said. “It’s a little slower than your regular browser but much more private.”
Web surfers willing to pony up a few extra bucks for privacy can also purchase a VPN, or virtual private network, which encrypts traffic so browsing history can’t be traced.
Of course, some VPN companies can track users’ history them- selves, and potentially sell that to companies, so customers should do their homework before purchasing one.
Eckersley warned that the new resolution rolling back privacy protections essentially gives broadband providers the greenlight to “go full steam ahead and do maximum tracking.”