Why is my privacy at risk on the Internet?

Why is my privacy at risk on the Internet?
Contrary to popular belief, you are not anonymous on the Internet. Every time you surf the web using your computer, your activity is logged.

Depending on your Internet usage, your personal data could be stored on servers all around the world. Name, Gender, Age, Social Security Number or your address.

As illustrated below, there are three major "data dumps" which can collect information while you are online: Your computer, your Internet Service Provider and the "opposite side", eg. the website you are using right now.

 1  Your own Computer

As you surf the web, your computer quietly stores all kinds of data.

"Home Page"
Your computer recalls your personal start page and loads it each time you start your browser.

"Search History"
Your old web searches and keywords are kept for future use.

"Favorites"
When you bookmark a page, it is stored in this folder until deletion.

"History"
Your web browser tracks all websites you visited in the last weeks or months.

"Cookies"
Most websites use small text files to store user information for better interaction. Basically every website which asks you to "log in" uses cookies.

"Temporary Internet Files"
To speed up loading, your computer reserves some space to store content which you have already seen. Images and full websites usually reside here. Think of adult sites or so...

Emails
If you are using an email program such as Microsoft Outlook, all of your emails are stored on your hard disk.

Passwords
Today, most programs come with the option to save passwords for you. The same goes for websites (Ebay, Amazon, Yahoo, Myspace, etc.). Where there is a password field, there mostly is a pitfall to automatically save it. Easy but completely insecure.

These data sources have in common that it is very easy to recover the corresponding information. Even after deletion, third parties can still recover everything by the use of special software in most cases.

 2  Your Internet Provider (ISP)

Your Provider enables you to surf the web. Everything you see, they potentially see as well.
But most Providers, apart from exceptions like in China or Iraq, respect your privacy. Besides, it would be very difficult and expensive for your ISP to store all data they see.

More importantly, your Provider logs your IP Address. It is a unique address which cannot be used twice at the same time, thus it can be used to identify you without a doubt. In most countries, your Provider is forced by law to give out your identity in case of a complaint against your IP address.

 2  Opposite Side (eg. Google)

When you use Google to search for something, they of course see the search query itself.

They also store a lot of other information about your computer which your browser sends without your knowledge. If you want to know more about this, take our web anonymity test.
Whenever you do something on the Internet, the opposite side knows your IP address. As explained, your IP address is directly connected to your identity.

A proxy server can hide your real IP address and "surf with a fake identity"!