How Online Services Can Help Preserve Your Anonymity

And simply switching to another online service won’t help. "When you register with Yahoo! and sign in to our services, you are not anonymous to us," Yahoo says in its privacy policy.

 

One way Google and most other websites track where you go online is by installing little bits of code called cookies. That’s why you see ads from a site you visited. Your computer isn’t clairvoyant: it’s tracking you and sending the information back to the companies who placed the cookies when you opened a page on their site. You can disable cookies in your Web browser, but many sites — including Google — won’t work without them. And your IP address (which identifies your computer) is still recorded. That’s why privacy advocates such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation say it’s safer to use other services. Here are two options for other online services — one for beginners and a second for users who want to go a bit further:

 

Popping your search bubble

 

Duck Duck Go is a search engine that does not use cookies or store IP addresses, so your travels won’t be tracked online. Further, founder Gabriel Weinberg points out that when you use Google or Bing, your search results are tailored to preferences you’ve expressed in the past. For instance, one person’s search for "Barack Obama" might get Fox News as a top result, while a friend gets MSNBC, based on things like browsing history, Google +1s (its version of a "Like"), Tweets and Facebook shares. Weinberg calls that searching within a filter bubble.

 

Using Duck Duck Go lets users "pop" their search bubbles and get unfiltered results, he said.

 

Going dark

 

Some people might prefer an even more secure service. Tor, short for "the onion router" is named after its layered security like the layers of an onion. It generates a random path to send information from your computer to its destination. Each step along the path further obscures identifying information such as your computer’s IP address.

 

By default, Tor blocks all ads and redirects users to Duck Duck Go when a search term is typed into Google.

 

It’s not just for hacktivists or people living in censored countries such as Tibet, Syria and Egypt. Ordinary families who don’t want their kids to inadvertently reveal their whereabouts use Tor. According to Tor’s website, a rural lawyer in New England uses it to write an anonymous blog because he believes the political beliefs expressed on his site may offend some clients.

 

Tor is free downloadable software that works only with Mozilla’s Firefox browser, but it is compatible with both Windows and Mac computers. A mobile version for Android phones is available, and Tor for iPhones and iPads is in the works.

 

Tor can safeguard online activities such as browsing, instant messaging, blogging and Internet phone calls. However, your browsing experience will be limited. For security reasons, Tor blocks all plugins, including Adobe Flash and the newer HTML5 video technology, so watching video is off-limits. You can temporarily disable the block by clicking the "no scripts" snake icon, but you do so at the risk of revealing your identity. You won’t be able to tweet a story on Twitter or share to Facebook. Why? Because with Tor, sites don’t recognize you. You are anonymous.

 

Whether you decide to leave your online activities open to analysis or choose to use the Internet in private some or all of the time, it’s good to know you have options.