Online service users can request that their activity not be tracked, although most browsers ignore them
Online service users personal information can
be a gold mine for many big technological companies. According to network
security and ethical hacking experts from the International Institute
of Cyber Security, every time we visit a website we activate multiple tracking
tools that will follow up our online activity, primarily for commercial
purposes.
Although most browsers make available to the
user the option to disable tracking (known as ‘Do Not track’ request), this does not restrict the activation of
these tools in practice, it is the browser itself which decides whether or not
disable tracking. In fact, most browsers completely ignore these requests.
In addition to the majority of search tools
ignoring this request, it is disabled by default in almost all Internet search
services and, according to network security specialists, only 24% of users have
this tracking function enabled, 27% has not enabled this function, as the
remaining users ignore whether this feature is enabled or not in their systems.
Therefore, a Do Not Track request (DNT) can be
completely useless and, as if it were not enough, browsing tools like Safari
are in the process of eliminating this option, while some tools, like Firefox, are
trying to implement better security measures for their users.
DuckDuckGo Privacy
Essentials, the alternative to the DNT request
The users are conditioned to the decision that
the browser takes; in response, the DuckDuckGo browser has shown itself as the
best alternative to preserve the user’s privacy.
This browser has an extension called DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, which can
ensure a much more private browsing than traditional search engines.
The DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials extension was
designed to track and block the embedded tracking software on websites to avoid
the collection of our online activity. The extension also sends requests to
servers to use encrypted connections, limiting the information a site can
collect about the user.
In addition, the extension allows the user to online
search using the DuckDuckGo engine; according to network security specialists,
this search engine does not store any personal records of the user, or even
stores its search history.
There are other measures that users can take to
protect their privacy online, the network security experts mentioned. One of
the most basic measures is to use alternative search engines; DuckDuckGo,
StarPage or SeraX are some of the most popular alternatives to using tools like
Google.
Operating systems should also be treated with
care. Android collects all user information, as well as Windows OS 10,
fortunately for Google users and Microsoft there are multiple services and
tools with less invasive data collection policies.
