What other steps can I take to protect my privacy online?

The internet offers many opportunities and have a lot of useful information and resources that are available at your fingertips. Use these precautions to make your web surfing experience a safe and enjoyable one.

1. Before you enter personally identifying information like your name, email address, credit card info, and other similar sensitive information, check to see if the website has a privacy policy page.

If it is missing a privacy page, leave the site and find a similar site or service that has a policy protecting your personal information. Don't take the risk of identity theft or worse with untrusted or shady sites.

If they didn't bother to formulate and enforce a privacy policy, they aren't worth trusting with your sensitive information.

2. Do not leave personal information that you aren't comfortable disclosing. If you feel the information being requested is way too intrusive or personal or irrelevant to the service or content you're trying to get from the site, leave the website and try to find a similar website that asks fewer prying questions.

3. When using social networking sites or forums or chat sites, make sure to put some thought into what you're posting. Search engines are extremely powerful and can dig up random posts and messages on the internet. If you don't want your identity know when posting to public forums or publicly accessible areas, use a newly created email address and account with no personally identifying information.

4. If you're using an “always on” network connection, make sure to install and maintain a firewall. Firewall software prevents your computer from hacking and remote attacks.

5. Manage your passwords responsibly. Do not use the same password among all websites you join. Make sure that the password you use for encrypted or secure sites are different from less secure sites you visit. Don't use the same password you use for your credit cards or bank accounts for your online accounts and vice versa.

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