Tips to keep your search history private

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently published 6 tips: “How To Keep Your Search History Private.” I’ve posted an abbreviated version and added some thoughts below.

• Don’t put personally identifying information (name, social security number, credit account numbers, etc.) in your searches, at least not in a way that can be associated with your other searches.
• Don’t use a search engine operated by your ISP. Most ISPs inherently know who their users are, at any given time and over the long run. If you use their default search tool, they know who you are and everything you search for.
• Don’t log into a search engine account.
• Don’t accept cookies from your search engine.
• Use a separate browser or browser profile for search and for other activities.
• Use an anonymizing proxy, or proxy network, to prevent search engines from learning your IP address, especially if your ISP gives you the same IP address each time you use the Internet.

The key to a successful, anonymous search strategy is common sense. You need to protect your privacy from those on the outside and the inside.

Set your Web browser to alert you to the cookies Web sites that you visit may set. My personal preference is to let the browser prompt me to accept or block third party cookies (most of which are for ad serving and site traffic reporting). I typically allow session cookies and first party / originating server cookies.

If your paranoid, use multiple search engines: Yahoo.com this month, Google.com next month, Ask.com after that. Then start over again.

Every month, wipe all cookies, history and saved form field info as a precaution in case your laptop is lost or stolen. The Firefox Web browser provides an easy “Clear Private Data” link in the Tools menu.

If others in your household have access to your computer, don’t use the computer for embarrassing online searches (i.e. sex, viagra, evil things).

Thanks to The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for the tips and to SearchEngineJournal.com for bringing attention to that information. Definitely click through to read more suggestions.

Be cautious and stay safe.
-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional who is concerned about how companies handle personally identifiable information. His observations can be found at Chaos365.com and AdMadMan.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.