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 introduce an add-on for its Chrome browser. With this add-on users do not have to worry about tracking cookies that monitor their movement and online behavior. This is a constructive step taken by this company in order to create a balance between sales 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 numerous 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.
As users give out their personal information, they do not realize the potential consequences of doing so. For many of them, reading the website's privacy policies is a tedious job. They skim over the information so that they do not understand how their personal information will be handled. Later on, they will wonder why they have become targets of unsolicited advertisements. In short, their privacy has been compromised.
Tech companies have not given up their revenue generation techniques. They still hold on to the idea that advertising fuels the web. They describe their move as meeting halfway between privacy and revenue generation through advertising. Some privacy experts see this as a marginal improvement, but acknowledge this is just the start of a better discussion on privacy.
Google's free Keep My Opt-Outs extension can now be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store. This new feature will give users significant control over their data, a company spokesperson said. On the other hand, Mozilla is now ready with its own opt-out tool for its Firefox browser. The company will use the Do Not Track HTTP header, something different from what the other companies did. It will be released soon, but no exact date was given for the integration of the new technology with the browser.
The three browser makers (Microsoft, Mozilla and Google) are using different strategies, but they all attempt at giving more privacy to internet users. It is too early to tell which among the three strategies will dominate, or which ones will not work at all. Despite reservations, the fact that they have started to move is a hint that these companies are open to discussion on privacy. More will come in these remaining days of 2011, and consumers can surely hope for more reliable privacy protection technology.
So how do you make sure that all private information remains private on the Internet? Use an anonymous proxy to hide your IP address and defend your Internet identity.
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