Any good hitter can tell you the secret to hitting is to keep your eye on the ball. If a hitter is distracted by the scoreboard, the fans, or even a sheet of paper blowing across the field, it\u2019s not very likely he\u2019s going to hit the ball. So it is with dangers you face on the Internet.<\/p>\n
A couple of days ago we posted an article called \u201cWhat Does Google Know About You?\u201d. The responses we\u2019ve had to this article have been telling. Many of you want to know how to avoid having information collected about you. Some of you said you don\u2019t use Google. Some said you don\u2019t use Gmail. But that\u2019s not the point. \u00a0Google, Bing, Yahoo \u2013 and all the major search engines collect data about you. What this data consists of all or some of these:<\/p>\n
1. Your IP address
\n2. The advertisements you clicked
\n3. The pages you\u2019ve visited
\n4. The things you\u2019ve searched for
\n5. \u00a0The Sites you\u2019ve visited<\/p>\n
Why would they want to do this? \u00a0Money. They know that showing you advertisements based on what you like are going to get far more of your interest than random advertisements. If you are a lady, searching for shoes, or visiting shoe stores sites, would you rather see ads for shoes and shoe related products, or \u00a0men\u2019s suits? Shoes of course.<\/p>\n
Google, Bing, Yahoo aren\u2019t trying to find out where you live \u2013 or your phone number \u2013 or turn you in because you stumbled on an illegal Web site.They\u2019re interested in getting \u00a0paid by advertisers. The more customers they deliver \u2013 the more money they make.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one thing to be concerned about privacy but quite another to worry to the point of\u00a0taking your eye off the ball<\/a>. One of the biggest reasons why so many things on the Web remain free, is exactly the same reason that broadcast radio and broadcast TV remain free \u2013 advertising. Advertising that is targeted to your particular tastes and likes, is much less annoying than random advertising for things you could care less about. The reason why search engines and some Web sites collect data about you is to show you advertisements based on what you like. And they learn what you like by keeping track of the things you search for and the sites you visit. There is no dark motive behind this \u2013 unless you consider money a dark motive. And if you do you\u2019re living in the wrong world. If you haven\u2019t noticed \u2013 it\u2019s all about the money everywhere you go.<\/p>\n It\u2019s sad to see so many of you worrying about cookies and data search engines collect about you \u2013 and then being hurt by things like scareware, rogues, spyware, adware, botnets, viruses and other malware. If you allow fear mongers to stir you up about cookies and search engine tracking \u2013 you\u2019re really not doing yourself a favor.<\/p>\n Search engines are no doing anything that hasn\u2019t and isn\u2019t being done in the real world. When you\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to a magazine \u2013 you\u2019ll probably get offers from similar magazines. Coincidence? You think? Grocery stores offer shopper\u2019s cards. Everything you buy is tracked and you may receive offers and coupons you buy \u00a0in the mail. Coincidence? Hardly.<\/p>\n You\u2019re being tracked by cameras on street corners, by your bank, your super market, you magazine company. You\u2019re being tracked by your government \u2013 try not paying your taxes.<\/p>\n Search engines are not tracking you to steal your personal information \u2013 or for any other pernicious purpose. They\u2019re tracking you to show you ads you may be interested in and you may click. And if you click, they make money. You may see something very wrong with that, but we don\u2019t. We would much rather see ads we are interested in that ads for things we\u00a0are\u00a0not.<\/p>\n Honestly, you\u2019re going to be far safer if you stop worrying about how much Google or Bing or Yahoo or any other search engine Web site and focus on protecting your computer and your PERSONAL information by installing, updating and using good antispyware, and good antivirus, good antimalware software. And more importantly by using good common sense and educating yourself about scareware, malware, Trojans, botnets, spyware, viruses and other malicious files and programs that abound on the Web.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t take your eye off the ball. If you do you may find you\u2019re being tracked by something far more sinister than Google. No search engine is going to steal your money, personal information, your credit card numbers, your Social Security number, or your identity. There are thousand of miscreants and thousands of malicious programs on the Web. There are phishing sites. There are botnets. There are\u00a0keyloggers<\/a>. And if your computer gets infected you\u2019re going to have a lot more to worry about than tracking cookies, cookies, and the information search engines know about you.<\/p>\n Take our word on it. It\u2019s true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Any good hitter can tell you the secret to hitting is to keep your eye on the ball. If a hitter is distracted by the scoreboard, the fans, or even a sheet of paper blowing across the field, it\u2019s not very likely he\u2019s going to hit the ball. So it is with dangers you face on the Internet.\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1656,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4186,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185\/revisions\/4186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}