How to escape the online spies | Technology | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/13/how-to-ge...

How to escape the online spies

Whether youre tweeting, shopping or just browsing, internet companies are monitoring
you. Heres how to evade the snoopers

Photograph: Shutterstock/Bryan Mayes

Darien Graham-Smith
Saturday 13 May 2017 19.00BST

Nobody likes being spied on. When youre innocently browsing the web, its deeply
unpleasant to think that faceless technology corporations are monitoring and recording
your every move.

While such data collection is legal, that doesnt mean its all right. There are plenty of
things you might prefer to keep to yourself, such as your income, your sexuality, your
political views or your membership of the Yoko Ono fanclub. For an indication of what
can be inferred from your online habits, take a look at the Apply Magic Sauce tool
produced by Cambridge Psychometrics Centre, which produces a prole of your
personality based on Facebook and Twitter data.

And while you might console yourself with the knowledge that all of this information is
mostly used for targeting ads, that might not be the case for much longer. The internet
giants are building up ever more detailed user proles and nding new ways to exploit
that information. In the Observer, Carole Cadwalladrs ongoing investigation has

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highlighted how analytic techniques were used in the recent EU referendum to target
and craft messages to groups of persuadable voters based on psychological insights
gleaned from online data.

Even if you are relaxed about analytics companies gaming the political process, you may
be more bothered about the eect on your wallet: researchers at the Polytechnic
University of Catalonia have already found evidence that some online retailers use
proling to discriminate against certain customers. If youre identied as a high-value
shopper, youre likely to be steered towards more expensive products, or even charged
more than other visitors for the same item.

And thats just the start of it. Experts warn that, in the future, your online activity could
be taken into consideration when you apply for a loan or for a job. Thats troubling, not
least because proling involves a large element of assumption and inference. Something
as innocent as searching for a medical condition even out of mere curiosity could
cause your insurance premiums to rocket, and youll never know why.

Even if youve nothing to hide, therefore, it may be wise to minimise your exposure to
online tracking. Heres how some of the biggest names on the web spy on you and how
to protect your privacy.

Amazon

Pressing the mute button on top of Amazons Echo voice

assistant will temporarily stop it from recording audio.
Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

Amazon has a disconcerting habit of following you around the web. Spend a few minutes
browsing its catalogue for a new crepe pan, and you might nd that the next site you
visit is mysteriously festooned with ads for cookware.

Thankfully, Amazon gives you an easy way to opt out of being tracked in this way.
Simply click on Your Account from the Amazon homepage, then scroll down to
Advertising Preferences: here youll see the option to disable personalised ads. Note
that since this feature relies on cookies, it will only take eect in the browser youre
currently using.

Under Advertising Preferences, youll also see the option to view and manage your
browsing history; from here you can disable tracking altogether, or remove individual
items from your Amazon history. That could be useful if youre shopping for a gift, or if
youve been browsing unfashionable items youd rather not be reminded of.

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What about Amazons voice assistant devices? If youve got an Amazon Echo in your
home, you might be concerned about it listening in on private conversations. Rest
assured, the Echo doesnt record anything it hears until you address it with the
appropriate wake word (normally Alexa). Whatever you say next is relayed to
Amazon, where its processed and stored, but you can wipe this data at any time youll
nd the option to do so in Amazons Manage Your Content and Devices settings.

To ensure that Alexa cant be woken up even by accident, you can also press the mute
button on the top of the Echo to temporarily disable the microphone; just press it again
to turn it back on. Its worth noting, however, that the Echos software updates
automatically, so its behaviour could change at any time. Well be keeping a sharp eye
out for any updates that could compromise your privacy.

Apple

The macOS operating system passes your search terms on to

Apple. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

iPhones and iPads collect a lot of data about you, and its accessible not just to Apple but
to third-party apps too. The Privacy section in the iOS Settings app gives you an
overview of whats being collected, and lets you disable various data-sharing features.

One particular thing to note is that if youre carrying an iPhone around in your pocket, it
will be constantly keeping track of your location, and potentially sharing it. You can
easily tell it not to, though: in the Settings app, tap on Privacy > Location Services
and select which apps should have access to your GPS data. You can also disable system
services such as Frequent Locations, or disable location services altogether though
this means that apps like Apple Maps wont work.

Its a similar situation for Mac users. The macOS system uses network connections to
work out where in the world your computer is located, and this information can be
shared with applications and websites. You can manage this from System Preferences
> Security & Privacy.

Another privacy concern for macOS users is the fact that every time you search for
something in Spotlight, your search terms are passed on to Apple, so the companys
servers can provide suggested links to online sources. You can disable this feature by
opening System Preferences > Spotlight and unticking the box for Spotlight
Suggestions.

Finally, keep an eye on your webcam, as malware can allow hackers to literally spy on
you via your Macs built-in camera. If the light comes on unexpectedly, that means

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someones watching you; for complete peace of mind, you can always cover the camera
with opaque tape. Consider also going to System Preferences > Sound and disabling
the internal microphone, to ensure no ones eavesdropping on your conversations.

Facebook

Facebook: you might decide the safest option is not to have an

account. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

Youve probably handed plenty of personal information to Facebook yourself but the
social network also tracks your visits to other websites to build up a scarily detailed
prole of your lifestyle and interests. This information is mostly used for targeting ads,
but it could be turned to other purposes in the future.

Facebook is quite open about the information it collects. When you see an ad on your
timeline, you can always click the drop-down menu at its top right and select Why am I
seeing this? to discover why Facebook chose to show you an ad for a smartphone,
rather than one for scented soap. For a fuller explanation of what Facebook knows about
you, go to the Settings page and click Adverts to inspect your advertising prole. If
there are any mistakes here, or advertisers you dont want to hear from, they can be
removed or blocked with a click.

The creepy part is that, by default, Facebooks targeted ads dont appear only in
Facebook itself. Facebook uses cookies to follow your prole on to other websites and,
like Amazon, ensure that you see the ads it wants you to. You can disable this behaviour
from the advert preferences page: under Advert settings youll see a rather awkwardly
phrased setting for Ads on apps and websites o of the Facebook Companies. Set this
to No and you should regain a degree of online anonymity.

Of course, this doesnt mean that Facebook isnt still proling you: theres sadly no easy
way to stop it collecting information. Your best bet is to turn to the measures described
in The internet, below, such as enabling Do Not Track in your browser, specically
opting out or installing an anti-tracking browser extension. Or, of course, you may
decide its safest just to delete your Facebook account.

Google

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Googles My Activity page allows you to view your entire

browsing history. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

Most of us use Google services every day, and as a result the web giant knows a huge
amount about our movements and interests. You can nd out everything its learned
about you at myaccount.google.com. Your data is all set out in an impressively forthright
way; the only problem is, theres so much information to work through that it can be
bewildering to navigate.

One section thats worth your attention is Manage your Google activity. Here youll
nd Googles activity controls, which let you disable various types of data collection. For
example, you can tell Google not to log your Chrome browsing history and activity, to
stop tracking your location and to desist from keeping records of any voice commands
you might issue. Turning these features o can make Google services less smart, but you
might consider that a price worth paying.

For a closer look at the information Googles been collecting on you lately, click on My
activity. This brings up a timeline showing all of your searches, webpage visits, Android
app activity and so forth. Seeing your digital life laid bare like this can be pretty
unnerving: if theres something youd prefer Google to forget, simply click on the menu
icon to its right and delete.

If you want to thoroughly inspect everything Google knows about you, you can even
download a comprehensive archive of personal information by clicking on Control your
content > Download your data. Be warned, though, this archive can be huge: the
default settings include all the emails in your Gmail account, and any videos you may
have uploaded to YouTube.

If you want to limit the information you share with Google in the future, the easiest way
is simply to use it less. For example, try the privacy-focused search engine at
duckduckgo.com, and use an alternative browser such as Firefox.

Microsoft
Windows 10s telemetry features automatically capture all sorts of information about
what youre doing on your PC, and send it back to Microsoft. The company insists that
this information is only used to improve Windows, but it can still feel like a violation.

The recent Creators Update to Windows 10 prompts you to review your privacy
settings as part of the update process, but you can check and change your settings at any
time: simply open the Windows 10 Settings app and click on Privacy. Youll nd no
fewer than 18 pages of conguration options, covering everything from personalised

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advertising to location services.

There are a few settings you might particularly want to check. One feature of Windows
10 that may be cause for concern is the way it tracks everything you type yes,
everything and shares it with Microsoft. This is supposed to help the operating system
learn the way you work, but if the idea makes you shudder, you can disable it under
Speech, inking and typing.

Under Feedback & diagnostics, meanwhile, you can choose how much diagnostic
information gets periodically sent back to Microsoft. A full report includes details of
which applications youve been using and which websites youve been visiting, so you
might prefer to switch to the more limited basic setting. You can also manage the
information that Microsoft already knows about you by visiting the Privacy Dashboard at
account.microsoft.com/privacy.

While not strictly a privacy issue, another controversial aspect of Windows 10 is the
inclusion of ads in the user interface. To remove unwanted ads from the Start menu, go
to Settings > Personalisation > Start and disable Occasionally show suggestions in
Start. To stop Microsoft advertising its OneDrive cloud storage service, open File
Explorer, then select View > Options > Change folder and search options, click on
the View tab, and untick Show sync provider notications.

The internet

Google Chrome, like most major browsers, has options to

disable tracking. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

All right, its an exaggeration to say that the internet as a whole is spying on you. But
there are a hell of a lot of companies out there keeping tabs on your online activity. The
motivation normally comes down to lthy lucre tracking your interests helps them
push relevant ads your way, and to be fair you might prefer those to irrelevant ones.

If youd rather not be tracked, one step you can immediately take is to enable the do not
track feature in your browser. Yes, its that simple: every major web browser has the
capability to tell websites that you dont want to be followed you can nd more details
at donottrack.us. The only problem with this system is that compliance is completely
optional, so websites that want to follow you still can.

Another thing you can do is visit youradchoices.com, a site that checks your browser for
tracking cookies from more than 100 companies. You can disable individual cookies,
or turn o all behavioural advertising with a single click. After this, youll still see ads,
but they wont be customised to your interests any more.

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A more drastic solution is to congure your browser to reject third-party cookies that
is, cookies that connect to a site other than the one youre currently browsing. However,
this can cause problems if, for example, a site uses embedded content from elsewhere on
the web. A safer option is to use a tool such as Ghostery ; this free browser extension can
block tracking cookies from more than 4,500 companies, while letting you selectively
enable cross-site content. Its a pain that this should be necessary, but if you dont want
your personal information to be shared around online, its a precaution worth taking.

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