How can we stop web companies harvesting our private information?

Any online platform you use collects information about your behavior, location and interests. Browsing history may be combined with physical location, shopping purchases with watched TV shows, commute to work and so on. Basically, you’re tracked from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep.

It’s difficult to completely avoid being tracked – and the data that has already been shared cannot be taken back.However, there are a few proven privacy protection methods that can easily be implemented by anyone using the internet:

Download all your Facebook data if you are deleting your account.

If you have decided to delete your Facebook account, first download all your data that is held by Facebook – just to see the extent of what they have been collecting.Go to Settings, General Account Settings and click‘Download a copy of your Facebook data’.

Delete all suspicious apps.

It’s important to revoke access to Facebook applications that are no longer in use, as well as suspicious apps that offer users ways to get ‘likes’,followers or view private accounts on Instagram and other types of social media.

Delete cookies, which are one of the most common ways to track your online behaviour.

These are small pieces of code that are downloaded to your browser when you visit a website. When you visit that site again, this will be recorded through the cookie, so you can be targeted with ads. You should regularly clear your browsing data to get rid of cookies.

Use a VPN to encrypt data between your device and the internet, and make sure your browsing history remain confidential.

NordVPN is fast and easy to use, and is known for focusing on privacy,security and having a zero-logs policy. It reroutes and encrypts all web traffic by hiding your IP address.