Between Google’s recent privacy concerns and the general increase in the amount of information that can be found online, you may be concerned about your online privacy. For the most part, a good strategy for protecting your privacy online is to use common sense. Limit the amount of information that you post, and be certain that you have at least looked over the privacy policies of sites that you plan to do business with.

For those who want a bit more, here are a few more options to keep your identity safe.

Browsing

The most obvious way to protect yourself while surfing to web is to set your privacy settings such that only sites that you want can place cookies, only visit sites that you trust, and get an Anti-Virus tool and Adware scanner to protect yourself against malicious software. If you are really fanatical about privacy I suggest you pick up Tor.

Tor is a software product that encrypts then sends your Internet traffic through a series of randomly selected computers, thus obscuring the source and route of your requests. It allows you to communicate with another computer on the Internet without that computer, the computers in the middle, or anyone in between knowing who you are. Over the last several years Tor has been improved quite a bit and is now a great tool for anonymous surfing.

Email

For Email the biggest tip that I could give you in order to protect your privacy is to create an account specifically for spam. That way you can keep your main mail account relatively free of malicious agents and it’s far less likely you will find yourself caught by one of the millions of scams to surface on the internet everyday.

A few other good choices to protect your privacy are myTrashMail and Hushmail.

MyTrashMail allows you to create a temporary account to be used for registering to sites. After a certain amount of time the account, and any spam that would be generated from your registration in the future, disappears. MyTrashMail is a fantastic way to cut down on the overall amount of cluttering up your mailbox.

Hushmail is another option for those who fear that someone is eavesdropping on your email. Hushmail allows you to send your email using PGP encryption. Also, since Hushmail is web based, no local copies of that email need to be stored on your computer. This works just fine, as long as you don’t happen to be trying to cook up drugs in your office.

Search History

Every so often take time out of your day to clear your cache, usually you can do this from Tools -> Clear Private Data (In Firefox). While you are much better off getting an Adware blocker like AdAware, there is something to be said about keeping your cache clean.

The free version of AdAware is a great tool to get rid of unwanted cookies, spyware and malware. It is fairly light weight and can be picked up right out of the box. Like anything else that scans your computer you will want to keep it updated to ensure that it is working at its best. I recommend it as a stop gap, not a replacement for, good net habits.

Web 2.0 Roundup

Here are a few more general tips to help keep you safe from hackers and internet eavesdroppers.

Make sure all online forms are secure, check for the “lock” icon.

Read privacy policies, most of the times sites themselves will tell you if they plan to sell the personal information that you put there. If a commerce site does not have a privacy policy, I highly suggest bringing your business elsewhere.

Send your name, address and phone number to the Telephone Preference Service, c/o Direct Marketing Association, P.O. Box 9014, Farmingdale, NY 11735-9014. This will allow you to put your number on the “don’t call” list. While this is not strictly web privacy, it’s a good tip for anyone who receives more telemarketing calls than real ones.

Don’t talk to strangers. When online remember that all of your communication is being recorded and it certainly is not always for your protection. Be aware of what information that you are giving out online.

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