This is a 6 part series with Fox & Friends on settings that keep your browser from collecting and sharing your private data. It begins with the Fox & Friends segment on Browser Spies.
Do you realize that every step you take, every click you make online is tracked, analyzed and sold or traded to companies that want to market to you? I don’t know about you, but I get a bit fed up with outsiders having more control over my online identity and privacy than I do. This short video series, in partnership with Fox & Friends, is meant to help you take back a measure of control in your digital life.
To view the entire Browser Spies Online Privacy video series, wait until the end of each video and click on the Next Video button in the lower right-hand corner of your screen. As you watch each short video in your browser, make the necessary changes based on each simple video tip on protecting your online identity and privacy. Or, chose from the list of tips here:
Facebook has decided to index your private information and make it searchable by a wide range of people you probably didn’t envision as your audience when you originally posted. Unfortunately, this list includes identity thieves, stalkers, phishers, fraudsters and your ex-partner.
Whenever you log onto Facebook these days, your news feed is likely to be littered with announcements of every variety, political rants, links to news stories and those “repost this on 10 of your friends’ walls” threads.
Between those posts are ones in which your friends reach out to their friends to ask for advice. For example:
“Does anyone know a good wedding photographer?”
“What are the best Italian restaurants in Boston’s North End?”
“Just got Netflix and looking for new shows to watch. Any recommendations?”
There are absolutely good sides to Facebook and social networking. They engage people in ways that they aren’t engaged otherwise. As your children experience that moment of euphoria that comes from these new connections, use their enthusiasm to start a conversation about what is appropriate online and what isn’t. The more you get involved, the safer they will be.
What are your questions? Let me know if the comments box below. Who knows, your question might appear next on AskSileo!
The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board’s recent assessment of the internet as a “wild west frontier” could not be more accurate. As a relatively new “frontier,” the lack of basic governing principles on the internet – what is permissible, who is in control, what constitutes online privacy – has produced a relatively lawless space where chaos is the dominating force.
Right now, you are not in control of your online information; corporations can treat it in almost any way they wish and without legislation, they will continue to take advantage of the wild west.
Lawmakers have tried to bring some control to the internet frontier and reduce widespread copyright infringement through initiatives like SOPA and PIPA, but they’ve been met with overwhelming resistance from a growing chorus of free speech advocates.
This was a statement made by a 22-year-old individual participating in a panel discussion about Generation Y and online privacy at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) currently taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Slamming your head in a car door hurts, so we don't do it. Exposing dangerous amounts of our private information also hurts, but because we don't feel the pain instantaneously, we tend to ignore it all together. Our risk attention span is about 30 seconds, or about as long as it takes to read a 140-character tweet.
The CES panel was composed of six young adults between the ages of 18 and 28. Each individual made some very important points about social media exposure and their use of the Web.
"I don't believe that if I were to turn [my social networks] off that people wouldn't be able to get my info. It's already out there," said Tess, one of the Gen Y-ers.
When we talk about ourselves, it is scientifically proven that we get mini hits of a natural drug called dopamine. It makes us feel better and because of that, it is addictive. Facebook, and social media are all about talking about ourselves. Why does Facebook have 1 Billion users? Because they have an addictive business model, and we are it’s test subjects.
What are your questions? Let me know if the comments box below. Who knows, your question might appear next on AskSileo!
Too often we hear about what steps people should take after they have been victims of identity theft and fraud. That’s like telling a batter to wear a helmet after he’s been hit in the head by a baseball.
In a recent news report from a local Fox affiliate in Florida, Jackson Hewitt tax preparer Jessica Douglas said she constantly sees instances of fraud when people come to her to file their returns. Many of these individuals don’t even realize that they have been victimized until months later when they’re sitting at her desk and are blindsided with the news. The Internal Revenue Service sends back a rejection notice, which signifies that someone else has already used your Social Security number to file a return.
Now, Douglas says the IRS will give you a personal identification number that supposedly makes it more difficult for villainous types to steal your identity. But, once again, the catch is that you have to have already been victimized once before you can get a PIN.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. Milton Friedman said it in the 70s and my slightly skeptical and generally accurate Italian father has told me that for at least as long. Friedman can have the credit for the saying, but Dad gets credit for the applying.
Since the beginning of the Internet, we have been told that we are getting free stuff (songs, articles, videos, entertainment, gigabytes of storage, social connections, etc.). In reality, we have just been paying with a different currency-our private information. Think about it, you have given Facebook your birthdate, hometown, current town, religion, sexual preference, marital status and a daily update of what you like, what you do and who you know. As Javier David points out in a piece for CNBC in a piece about online privacy, we, as consumers, have become slaves to what we were told was free, but in reality comes with massive payments in a very personal and powerful currency.
In "Mission: Impossible," messages would self-destruct five seconds after being viewed. But, in real life, any application that claims to do the same should be met with hearty laughter and a salt shaker full of skepticism.
According to a report from a local ABC affiliate in Los Angeles, the Snapchat mobile app has shared more than one billion "snaps" globally. These are text and picture messages, sent between friends via smartphone, that supposedly disappear from the sticky tendrils of the World Wide Web without a trace. However, I highly doubt any application can completely wipe a message from existence once it hits the internet, which means that your digital reputation grows, for better or worse, every time you share.
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