Lesson: Why Care About Internet Privacy?/ExerciseL1

Listening Exercise

I heard a saying that “If you're not paying for the

, then you ARE the product”.

Absolutely, it's

true.

That's Alan Henry from LifeHacker.com. So, first off, Alan, why should

care about internet privacy?

Every time you click from one website

another, you click on a link to go to the next page – that's information that people are collecting about you. That kind of information that you may think is meaningless

the steam that powers a lot of companies.

Oh, so, if I don’t want my personal

to be used by other people to make tons of money, what can I do?

The first step is really for people to understand

transaction that they make when they get something shiny and new that's

. So when you sign up for a new

at whatever service, read the terms of

at least as much as you can. What is

that you're giving up?

Could you give an example, like what if I sign up for a photo-sharing site?

Well congratulations, those

are now owned by

company and they can be used in advertising efforts,

if those are photos of you and your family.

Oh, ouch! Ok, so what can I do about this?

If you're okay with Facebook

Twitter and Google and these other companies knowing these things about you, then that's fine. If you're not okay or if you want to control when they get information and

they don’t, there are a number of

extensions like Disconnect and Ghostery. All these browser extensions give you control over whether or not

sites that you visit collect information about you and send them to other related companies.

Ok, then! My information is important and I'm going to

it as best I can.