Chrome users must opt-in to privacy measures designed to protect against tracking (Vox): Cookies allow advertisers to track your activity across different websites to send you targeted advertising. Chrome users have the option to block cookies so advertisers can’t follow them. However, Chrome deliberately makes cookies the default, so that users have to opt-out in order to disable tracking. Most users stick with the default settings or are unaware that opting out is an option, making it much easier for them to be tracked unknowingly.

It can be surprising to realize how much hidden information about your Internet activities is stored and transferred. To begin with, every Internet connection automatically transmits information about where you’re connecting from — no matter whether you are posting on a hobby forum or simply clicking on a news article. In other words, every time you visit a website, you leave a trace! Websites and apps store this and other data about users’ behavior — in some cases, even very detailed information like where your mouse hovers or how your finger moves on the screen.

Even when you’re not using the Internet directly, your everyday activities generate data. Going to the doctor, making a purchase with a credit card, or even activating your voice assistant — all of these things make your information footprint bigger.

Customize the Technology:

• Check your privacy settings on your mobile apps, computer software, and online accounts. Opt out of any services with which you do not wish to share information! A lot of websites and mobile apps will automatically share information such as location or contact information unless you specifically change the settings to opt out.

Communicate About Preferences:

• Check your privacy status with companies. Banks, insurance providers, hospitals, and other companies are often legally bound to let you opt out of at least some types of data sharing.

Burglars are following you on Facebook (Wall Street Journal): The author’s house was broken into by burglars after they posted about their daughter’s wedding on social media. The family posted detailed information on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter about the time, place, and date of the wedding. This allowed the robbers a detailed account of the family’s activities, ensuring that they wouldn’t be home at the time of the break-in. A survey in the London Telegraph found that insurance companies are more frequently rejecting insurance claims for such robberies when the victims post about their vacation on social media.

Data collected about someone from many sources can be combined to infer even more information about that person. For example, a tweet saying you’re on vacation, the name in your Twitter profile, and a public record of your home address, could be used by a criminal to identify a good target for a robbery. A criminal could also use public information about loved ones, special events, and other things you like to predict common passwords and to answer security questions. This would allow them to potentially compromise bank accounts or other confidential information.

Use Your Imagination:

• Think before you post! Ask yourself how this information could possibly be used against you, in any way, by anybody. How could it affect you if the information was made known to your family, your employer or business connections, casual acquaintances, insurance providers, telemarketers, your government, foreign governments…?

Choose What You Use:

• Delete online accounts you’re not using any more and take down content that is no longer needed.

How Google and Amazon are spying on you (Consumer Watchdog): Amazon Alexa and Google Home monitor your conversations all the time while turned on — they have to, so they can hear when you use a “wakeword”. Audio clips are also recorded and saved each time you use the device, but this can also be triggered by background chatter. Patent filings show that the two companies hope to identify statements of interest like “I love skiing” in order to better facilitate targeted advertising.

Many apps and devices (such as TVs, tablets, mobile phones, and voice assistants like Amazon Alexa or Google Home) exchange information, often without the user knowing. For example, some multimedia content has data attached, like the location where a picture was taken, the time, and even the serial number of the camera.

Customize the Technology:

• You can turn on your voice assistant’s sound notification so that you are notified whenever it starts recording. You can also review and delete your voice recordings that are stored on the device.