Chapter 6: Privacy Control

In This Chapter

arrow.png Finding out why privacy is important

arrow.png Discovering the complicated web of shared data

arrow.png Blocking location tracking

arrow.png Lessening the intrusion on your privacy

“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.”

— Jeff Hammerbacher, early Facebook employee

askwoodycom_vista.epsWhen you work with “free” services — search engines like Google and Bing; social networks like Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn; online storage services like SkyDrive and Google Drive; free e-mail services like Gmail and Hotmail/Outlook.com or Yahoo! Mail; and on and on — these services may not charge you anything, but they’re hardly free. You pay with your identity. Every time you go to one of those sites, or use one of those products, you leave a trail that companies are eager to exploit, primarily for advertising.

There’s a reason why you buy something on, say, Alibaba, and then find ads for Alibaba appearing on all sorts of websites. One of the big ...

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