Protecting Personal Information
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A new improvement in protecting personal information has just been announced by Google and Mozilla. The two tech companies are giving users more choice in opting out of tracking cookies. Google said that it will offer an add-on for its Chrome browser. With this add-on users do not have to be concerned about tracking cookies that monitor their movement and online behavior. This is a positive step taken by this company in order to create a balance between profit generation and individual privacy.
The online advertising industry is continuously pushing for self-regulation. For a long time, they did not show positive response towards the call to give users more privacy. There have been several proposals for better privacy policies that protect individual privacy, and this current development will be a turnaround for users to gain more control over their personal information.
Many users just give out their personal information without being conscious of the possible consequences. They have not made it a point to read and be familiar with the site’s privacy policies. Others find it trying to go through the litany of legal terms, so they just agree to the terms as they are presented. They only start to recognize their mistake once unsolicited advertisements start to pop up on their screen.
Tech companies have accepted the fact that they do not have to give up their revenue generation approaches. They can still make use of the benefits from the advertisements that fuel the web. All they have to do is to meet halfway between privacy and revenue production. This could be considered as a marginal improvement, but could also signal the start of a better dialogue on privacy.
Google’s Keep My Opt-Outs extension is free and can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store. A company spokesperson said the new feature will give users significant control over their data. Mozilla also announced that it will soon release a similar tool for its Firefox browser. It said that it will apply a different approach, based on the Do Not Track HTTP header. However, it has not given a definite date for the integration of the new technology with Firefox.
It could be seen that the three large tech companies are using separate approaches in their privacy tools. However, all of these are efforts at giving more privacy to internet users. It is too early to tell which among the three approaches will rule, or which one will turn out to be ineffective. Being open to dialogue on privacy concerns is one good thing that is indicated by this development. Further developments can be probable in the remaining days of 2011. Consumers can anticipate a more reliable protection of their personal information.
So how do you make certain that all private information remains private online? Surf with an anonymous proxy to mask your IP address and protect your Internet identity.




