Regaining Privacy - How Difficult!

With the increasing number of data breaches, more users are realizing that they, themselves, are to blame. They give too much information online without thinking about the consequences. Many users are surprised when there is so much information about them when they do a simple search. They wondered how this was possible, but then remembered that they shared that information on one website or another. Now, users want to regain their privacy, but it is not a simple thing to do.

Users have just realized that every time they are online, there are many interested third parties that watch their online behavior. These could be marketers, game developers and search engines, with each one having its own purpose. However, they have one common goal: they are trying to collect as much information as they can from each user. These companies are sure that someday they can make a lot of money from whatever information they collect.

One user tells about how amazed he was that he found so much information about himself when he just did a simple search. He never imagined that a search would reveal one site that had a collection of his information including his address, number and names of his household members, food preferences, and even a picture of his house! Yes, many users want to win back total control over their own identities. One thing that they want to do is to remove their information from the internet.

Now this “removal” thing is not as easy as sharing the information on different sites. Another user who wanted to remove her information from a particular site was asked to provide a long list of personal information. Although she wanted to regain privacy, she did not want to go through this tedious process. She asked the company if there was a faster way to grant her removal request. The company spokesperson said that detailed information is needed so that it could delete the data of the correct person.

Users are advised to find out how much information about them there is on the internet. To do this, a user must do an inventory of the information that they have shared online. For sure, many would be shocked to know that that innocent information they shared many years ago is now threatening their privacy. The lesson is that users must not give away personal information so easily. Once privacy is threatened, it is very difficult to regain control.

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