How do we protect ourselves when ISPs are selling our data?

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That's a Lot Like Net Neutrality (not exactly related)

by Hforman Apr 23, 2017 10:45PM PDT

In Net Neutrality, nobody has slowed down your access to specific internet sites before, but word was that the ISPs were going to make that available for a price. Net Neutrality was supposed to stop that but many people had it all backwards. Essentially, Net Neutrality would have kept the status quo and users would NOT have seen a change. This is similar.

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Horrific Invasion of Privacy

by meowvet Apr 22, 2017 7:08AM PDT

First of all, let me say that I am not one bit surprised in this money-driven society that ISP's are now selling our data. I am sick to death of having images of something I just looked at at Amazon or J C Penney plastered all over some website I am perusing. How long will it be before we get the same on our cell phones? Seems to me this is the beginning of a short slippery slope that ends when our privacy is no longer private.

I was on a website looking at camping equipment and now I am getting a paper catalog from this company. Will this use of "snail mail" increase also? Waste of paper and added recycling.

Many of us do banking and pay bills using the internet. Will this make these transactions less safe?

Enough is enough. I, and all you readers, have a right to our privacy on-line. What's left of it!

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Not your ISP

by 1dat Apr 23, 2017 3:37AM PDT

What proof do you have that your ISP suddenly started selling your Internet activity after the non-enforced restriction was repealed? If it is selling your Internet activity now, it was doing so before. Repealing the restriction only left things the way they were. It did not give anyone anything NEW.
As for getting ads, they are provided by your browser and the sites you visit - not your ISP. This is how it always has been Nothing changed.

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Who's for the Little Man?

by brookdale_kb Apr 22, 2017 7:25AM PDT

Is there a group or an organization out there that can make these entities who sell "MY INFORMATION" pay me a royalty in the form of a prepaid Visa card monthly? There are enough lawyers on the side of big business, who's on the side of the little man (or woman) to make sure we get our fair share of the pie? Who is honest enough to take it on? Or do we just keep running and hiding?

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Good thought

by 1dat Apr 23, 2017 3:49AM PDT

This is a good thought, but I doubt it would go very far. Not enough people would back it for a politician to want to act.

The next time you're out driving, look at all the cars with dealer's license plate frames. None of those owners are getting paid to advertise the dealer. (Years ago it was common for dealers to put stickers on the cars showing where it had been bought. I asked the dealer how much he would pay me to advertise him. No sticker was put on my car.)

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My Attempts at Protecting My Privacy

by Zandiman1 Apr 22, 2017 8:57AM PDT

I've been using Disconnect to prevent tracking by my ISP and all other entities. Check out the reviews. It was rated higher than Ghostery and seems to work well without interrupting normal function of websites. It has the convenient option of disabling blocking specific functions (like "content," "analytics" and "social media") if it interferes with website functions you want to use. Its built in counter also shows how many trackers it's blocking on every web page. The numbers are shocking. It's also an ad blocker to boot. I have Ublock (another ad blocker with good reviews) installed in tandem with Disconnect and am happy with both so far. Is my browsing history really safe? Don't know for sure but at least I'm trying.

As a side note. I had to disable Disconnect to be able to make this post. Once posted, I re-enabled it again.

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What about their own tracking?

by 1dat Apr 23, 2017 3:54AM PDT

Do they also provide you with information on how much data they are collecting (and maybe selling) based on your Internet activity?
All these options only transfer who is allowed to track you from one entity to another.

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VPN is the best solution

by Maarek Stele Apr 22, 2017 10:04AM PDT

Opera browser has a built in VPN option. Canada just past net neutrality, so they are a safe place to reroute your browsing. This only protects your browsing, not any other applications. You never know if they are secure.

Similar to Google, they won't sell your data but rather use API to choose the right ads to display. This is similar to Amazon ads that follow you after searching Amazon for gifts.

Last bit of to pay for a VPN to secure your entire computer leaving your ISP with nothing to use.

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Use DNSCRYPT

by ihfwt Apr 22, 2017 7:08PM PDT

DNSCrypt is a piece of lightweight software that everyone should use to boost online privacy and security. It works by encrypting all DNS traffic between the user and OpenDNS, preventing any spying, spoofing or man-in-the-middle attacks.
Get it here: https://www.opendns.com/about/innovations/dnscrypt/

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Off topic

by 1dat Apr 23, 2017 4:52AM PDT

That may help protect the data sent, but not who sent it to whom.

Government agencies use highly sophisticated encryption, but an observer can still tell where the sender and recipient are located. But that information is only of intel value.

The topic of this conversation is actually tracking (and selling) your Internet activity - not someone trying to pry into your information. That's a different topic discussed in another forum.

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Speed as well as privacy are under threat

by eobodger Apr 23, 2017 5:54AM PDT

Once ISPs start recording your visits, routing that currently involves switching at electronic speeds will also need storing on much slower hardware. The volumes will probably be too large to accommodate on relatively slow flash memory, so will go to even slower disk, incurring all the delay inherent in a mechanical device.

We already have this limitation in the UK, where government demands that ISPs keep our browing history for a year, so that law-enforcement can snoop on us when required.

On both sides of the pond, it's only metadata that is being stored, so your choice of library book will be tracked only if you go to a page unique to the book.

I believe the best hope of preventing ISPs using this new privilege in the US is for customers to write asking them if they intend to, saying that the response could determine the future choice of ISP. It might flip me from Centurylink to Xfinity, though other factors such as customer service could work the opposite way.

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Cell phone users not jumping up and down.

by cobraii1976 Apr 23, 2017 8:21AM PDT

I don't know what the big deal is cell phone apps track everything you do and where you're at.

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Cell phone users....

by btljooz Apr 23, 2017 12:12PM PDT

That is why I REFUSE to use a "smart" phone. Even a dumb flip phone can tell where you are. But, it can't spy on what you're doing.

As for "smart" phone users, MOST of them have no idea that they are being spied on and tracked. There are even some who don't even know that they are on the internet when they go to Facebook to show and tell the world their deepest secrets. The ones who do know don't care because they are under the mistaken impression that "if they are not doing anything wrong" it doesn't matter. They have no idea that they are being bombarded with ads due to their own ignorance and/or stupidity.

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Simple answer to OP

by tumbleweed_biff Apr 23, 2017 6:10PM PDT

The simple answer and fairly simple solution to the original question is to use an VPN. This takes all of your online activity out o the hands of your ISP. The only thing they can track is the amount of data moved between you and your VPN provider as everything you send and receive is encrypted ( which would be totally meaningless to them. Every now and then CNet's Cheapskate informs of good deals for VPN service such as a lifetime subscription to VPN Unlimited from Keep Solid for $29.

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To what purpose?

by 1dat Apr 23, 2017 8:13PM PDT

All your suggestion does is transfer what entity has a record of your Internet activity. Plus, a VPN, which may be located in a country with different laws than your ISP, has never been restricted from selling this information.
The major ISPs have a long history of NOT abusing this data before the new regulation was proposed, and while it was pending. What evidence does ANYONE have that repealing an un-enforced regulation changed anything?

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The best way to avoid having posts, info, etc., protected:

by jerry6665 Apr 23, 2017 11:29PM PDT

My company was hacked awhile ago. The expert I hired to make sure everything possible was protected basically said: 1. Nothing personally identifiable goes online. No last 4 of your social security, no aunt's name, no first school... nothing. Make it up if you have to. 2. Have a private email which never buys/ sells/ searches/does social media, etc. and is used for friends only. 3. instruct your friends to NEVER post your name or visage online-and to NEVER refer to you by name 4. Never put your real name online. 5. Use a private search engine, preferably from overseas, to search for you. One is startmail and it's free. They go out and search all the search engines and report back to you. Your email or ISP never shows up anywhere. They also have private email addresses under startpage (not free but very cheap). Both are dot coms and both have layers between you and all online sites and websites. 6. There are other little tips but the best one was one I got from my father many years ago..."NEVER put ANYTHING in writing that you don't want to see on the front page of the NY Times at the worst possible moment!"

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Great Advice

by Hforman Apr 24, 2017 3:41PM PDT

Dear Jerry (or whatever your name is)

But there are issues where all of that falls down.
1) You can't give you "very private" email to family and friends an NOT have them post the information in an address book somewhere. My youngest brother is on GMAIL and Google has said they scan or read every single one of those and I can't stop him from using it and I'm pretty sure my name and email is posted on a Google website.
2) There are other places where your real information exists online and you have almost no say-so in that. Your bank, your mortgage, and even your County puts all that information somewhere. The nasty one is your County. If you own a home (especially in California), the county treats your information regarding your property as "public information" (by law) and they actually post that information. How do you get advertisements from realtors or others even in the mail? Go search on your name and one of the first things that pops up is your address. It's usually a website that grabbed all of the public information from the government and has posted it on some real estate site. Try it.
3) I had a credit card hacking. As "protected" as I am, you cannot deal with a financial institution who hires some young people who have figured a way to mess around with your account on the financial institution's computers and have bought a few thousand dollars worth of computer equipment which gets delivered to your door and then taken from your front porch by one of their friends. Luckily, I am home most days or there is someone here, a cleaning group, etc. They bring in the box and accept delivery. Meanwhile, your financial institution cancels you card and gives you a new number which is hacked immediately, and the bad guys keep changing your account information. So, I'm looking at a stack of 5 credit cards. They even locked me out of my account so I couldn't even log in. They told me that "I" changed my phone number two days earlier and I asked how. They said: web. And I said that Ive been locked out for a couple of weeks right? They said yes. Then how did I change my telephone number? They couldn't answer so I wound up cancelling that card and all accounts completely. Bottom line: If there is an institution out there that has your REAL information, you are probably exposed no matter what you do.
4) I have POBOX.COM and that is like what you mentioned. The thing to be careful is if you start using the mail forwarder address, its difficult to stop using it.
5) And lastly, if you go to ANY website these days that has tracking ads, you're information is already exposed. IP address, computer name, contact list.

While your suggestions sound great, a lot of people just won't bother. Too much work. The issue with, for example, your ISP is that, well, did you ever give them your real information? Name, address, real telephone number? Credit card information to pay your ISP bills? The ISP can make a lot of money if they can throw some of this information into the data that has your web browsing history. Something websites don't necessarily have access to.

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Response to ISP protection

by jonboy Apr 24, 2017 5:10AM PDT

Personally, I see no problem with this if, and only if, a minute percentage of the sales through whomever is allowed access is, in turn, given to each and every one of us.

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Yeh, but just try to immagine that ACTUALLY happening!

by btljooz Apr 25, 2017 8:12PM PDT

It's a nice thought, though!!! LOL!

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Very few ISP choices

by trh_ret Apr 24, 2017 5:51AM PDT

As far as I'm concerned, the point here is that I can choose whether or not I go to a particular website or what email or browser I use. I have virtually no choice of an ISP. My area has 1 cable provider, one DSL provider, and 2 satellite providers. This is another case of special interests with deep pockets influencing government decisions. The only answer I can see is for enough voters to register complaints to make our representatives pay attention. I'm pessimistic about the chances of that happening.

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Key sentence, there.....

by btljooz Apr 25, 2017 8:14PM PDT

"This is another case of special interests with deep pockets influencing government decisions."

You hit the nail square on its ugly head!!! Yes, that's exactly what it boils down to.

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What's More Important?

by time-to-spare Apr 24, 2017 6:18AM PDT

So the entire movement to prevent the NSA from capturing data about our communications is enough to start a movement to prevent it. One may question if using that information to help prevent crime and terrorism is not worth it, since it's private But compromising our right to privacy but allow profitable concerns to do basically the same thing in order to create a market and increase their profits is fine? Makes me wonder who's in charge in our country these days and what is most important? I guess the obvious answer is, government bad; business, good. Maybe if NSA were to sell the data they collect that would be fine.

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NSA

by Hforman Apr 24, 2017 3:50PM PDT

Unfortunately, there are laws and government stuff making it illegal to try and stop the NSA. Remember a president named George W. Bush? September 11, 2001 came around and withing WEEKS he was pushing to get something called the Patriot Act put into law. You might have seen a picture of the law. Paper stacked about 6 inches tall. If you've worked with ANY government agency, you can imagine how long it would take to come up with something that big. But just a few weeks? So, have you read that? I'll admit that I haven't. It's supposed to keep us safe but it created project PRISM which is the whole NSA/SNOWDEN thing. So, while you nor any other citizen likes the project (except for the few who think it will help), it is all legal and will take an act of congress to get rid of that. The Patriot Act, effectively, did away with your "privacy" irrespective of what is really in the constitution. And it passed Supreme Court muster so it looks like we are stuck. I'm not expressing an opinion, one way or another. It is what it is.

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Selling our data

by frednme2 Apr 24, 2017 9:10AM PDT

I am wondering if each of our key strokes and being collected by our ISP's, what about our passwords to our bank accounts? Are they going to be vulnerable as well or any of our key strokes on any of the https pages that we use? This is quite scary to me. I thought we had some control over what is private to us as we PAY for our ISP's and I thought they had some sort of obligation to us. I guess I am too naive and trusting.

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Huh ! Good to know

by itsdigger Apr 24, 2017 1:14PM PDT

Ublock works , thanks for that dude

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@ Dafydd

by itsdigger Apr 24, 2017 1:17PM PDT

You should delete this one too Bro !

Post was last edited on April 24, 2017 1:37 PM PDT

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Avast's take

by Avast AVG Team Avast staff AVG Staff Apr 27, 2017 9:41AM PDT

I really like this recent article on our blog:

https://blog.avast.com/you-have-right-to-remain-private-vpn

It's a good explanation of what the recent FCC ruling does (and does not) mean as well as a good over of VPN's, how they differ from proxies, etc.

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