Who else is watching you besides facebook?

by tina delzotti | September 24, 2012 at 12:40 am

181 views | 12 Recommendations | 4 comments

Here's a little test for you.

It's one that you can't cheat on even if you tried. Log in to anything, not just the normal social networks. Are you there yet? If you are reading this then most likely you are. Now starting with old fashion pen and paper....jot down as you go....all the sites you visit and click on the ads, tracking those as well. Before you destroy the paper, which is easy to do unlike Internet history, get a timer ready with pen in hand.
Back to the test.

How long did it take before your phone rang?
How many emails did you get within the time period of this test?
How many pop-ups of similar content of the ads you clicked on did you get?
How many of those strange, wire-like hairs that pop out of our skin really aren't actual wires used for tracking devices implanted by secretive governing Internet providers? Okay the last one was a joke, but with the way privacy and personal information are being hijacked it can make anyone feel a little edgy.

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Back to the test.

Lets start with the phone. If you answered "within five minutes" to the first one and:

The call was to collect a debt:

1. Blame it on the credit bureaus. They are not human and will go to any length to track you down. See keeping track.

2. Marketing or soliciting: Ditto on the above. Give these guys an inch and they will take a million miles to sell you anything and make millions while selling your info as well. And to think... all this time you thought you were worthless.

3. Annoying acquaintance that has no life? : See how others see you on any site that offers you a chance to be seen. Even after you disable it, make sure it doesn’t default back into ‘available’ mode.

4.A good friend or family member that doesn't own a computer or doesn't use it for tracking purposes?: Chance. But again that only depends if neither one of you is being used to track each other. (Yes, it’s possible and family members are often targets.)

How so and why all the interest? Here’s a clue.

Internet, phone, cable and satellite companies are interacting and merging at rapid speed to make the world a better place by exchanging data and designing new state of the art technology for our benefit to mind boink us all.

Was it good for you? You probably didn’t even notice it. That too is deliberate since awareness throws a wrench into the spinning web.

Here are some tips on how to stop part of the madness without having to move to some remote cave and live the life of a paranoid hermit.

It’s important to remember that your footprint remains to whatever and where ever your personal account info is tied to.

Some there is no getting around the erasing and others are possible but time consuming. Although Facebook made changes to the way their cookies are stored and handled. Some info will linger since the cookies are still retained and not deleted after logout. They don’t expire and still contain a few tads of non-personal data such as browser and which system you're using.

It’s recommended that you clear your Facebook cookies after every session. See facebook options regarding Adblock and how to stop facebook from tracking me.

All the major browsers such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer, have built-in plug-ins to help control cookies but doesn’t completely eliminate it by default to allow them.

Follow these other great tips to disable them.

Happy erasing.

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Inlandrevenuewhistleblower (not verified)

at 01:27 on September 24th, 2012

Beware; The Inland revenue are reading your emails, facebook ect to ascertain if you are worth investigating or not!

tina delzotti

at 07:06 on September 24th, 2012

Why is that not surprising?

nokidding101 (not verified)

at 07:08 on September 24th, 2012

Yes - the internet can track things and remember them too. It's actually better at forgetting though ... and this is easily tested. Remove all of your email accounts, all of your web pages, and play the hermit for six months. When you come out of hiding, your internet persona will be mostly gone - even in the search engines. Some say that Google keeps things in offline archives that can be re-triggered by new activity though. One downside is that the internet potential for "forgetting" can lead to a basic reimplementation of Orwell's memory hole, where history changes by the day - is constantly rewritten to appease this or that influencer - and the *real* past is eliminated. This was much harder to do for Winston Smith, who shoved wads of printed matter into the furnace all day long.

tina delzotti

at 05:47 on September 26th, 2012

I like the hermit thing, especially if palm trees are involved. But unfortunately that isn't feasible at the time. Thank you for all the info and the feedback! Normal.dotm 0 0 1 3 20 1 1 24 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Tina