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Content type: News & Analysis
Layla looks at her calendar on her phone. She’s in charge of planning her book club’s monthly meeting. After thinking for a second, she summons her AI assistant: “Hey Assistant, can you book me a table at that tapas restaurant I read about last week, and invite everyone from the book club? The restaurant should be in my browsing history. Let me know if the journey is more than 1-hour for anyone”. As the assistant compiles a response, she wonders if anyone else will hear this.Technology has made…
Content type: Long Read
If you’ve ever used TikTok, Instagram, or X/Twitter, you will already be familiar with centralised social media.Centralised social media means big company owns the app, controls the software, and keeps all your data.For example, ByteDance makes TikTok. They own it, run the servers, decide what you see in your feed, and hold onto every video you like or comment on. They call the shots when it comes to your data.But what if social media didn’t work that way? What if no single company was in…
Content type: Examples
After developing software that automatically recognises cookie banners that do not comply with the GDPR (usually because they do not provide a clear one-click option to reject all non-essential cookies), noyb has sent over 500 complaints to companies they consider non-compliant and given them a one-month grace period to change their practices. Along with the complaints, noyb provides a step-by-step guide on how to comply. They intend on generating over 10,000 complaints in this way in the…
Content type: Examples
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has filed a lawsuit in Hamburg against three AdTech industry trade bodies including the Interactive Avertising Bureau (IAB). Members of the IAB include big tech companies (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter...), data brokers (Equifax, Experian, Acxiom...) and advertising agencies (Groupm, Publicis, IPG...).
The lawsuit follows the filing in 2018 of complaints with the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) and UK Information Commissioner (ICO), which…
Content type: Examples
Sidestepping the need to obtain a search warrant, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been accessing smartphone location data by buying it from private marketing that typically embed tracker in apps. This data, which maps the movement of millions of cellphones in America, was collected from ordinary cellphone apps, to which users gave access to their location. In this particular instance, it was used by the DHS to search for undocumented immigrants according to the Wall Street…
Content type: Long Read
Now more than ever with a global pandemic happening, our lives are being shaped by our interaction with the digital world. Work meetings on Zoom followed by Skype with family before a quick run with your favourite running app and a Google search for your next meal: technologies and services offer us a lot and greatly improve our daily lives. But what's the real cost of these tools we rely on so much?
A lot of these companies, especially those offering free services, collect data about you. It…
Content type: Examples
Civil society organisations Civil Liberties union for Europe, Open Rights Group and Panoptykon Foundation have filed complaints against Google and Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) member companies in Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Romania.
The complaints address privacy abuses arising from real-time bidding processing, and call on data protection authorities to work together in investigation the real-time bidding industry.
Content type: Examples
French data protection regulator CNIL fined Google and Amazon €100 million and €35 million respectively for breaches of the French Data Protection Act. The CNIL found that the French websites of Google and Amazon had not sought the prior consent of visitors before advertising cookies were saved on computers, and failed to provide clear information to users as to how they intended to make use of online trackers and how to refuse any use of cookies.
In relation to Google, the CNIL made an…
Content type: Guide step
DNS level content blocking prevents your device from connecting to known domains that will serve you unwanted ads and track you across all different apps and browsers on your device.
DNS or 'Domain Name System' is basically the 'phone book for the internet'. On the internet, all your requests to access websites are routed to IP addresses. Since IP addresses are sets of numbers and hard to remember, we usually address hosts by their much easier to remember host-name (e.g. privacyinternational.…
Content type: Guide step
Setup
En internet, las solicitudes de acceso a sitios web se dirigen a direcciones IP. Dado que las direcciones IP son difíciles de recordar, solemos dirigirnos a los hosts por su nombre (por ejemplo, privacyinternational.org). Por eso, y porque las direcciones IP pueden cambiar con frecuencia, cuando tu computador quiere acceder a un servidor por el nombre del host, le pregunta a un servidor DNS cuál es la dirección IP de ese nombre de host, para poder enrutar la solicitud. Normalmente, tu…
Content type: Guide step
Opt out of targeted ads
We have written before about the risks that targeted advertisements pose in regards to your digital privacy. To opt out of targeted ads on Windows, open the Start menu, go to Settings > Privacy > General, and disable all options (Fig. 1).
Content type: Guide step
Cómo desactivar los anuncios personalizados
Ya hemos escrito antes sobre los riesgos que suponen los anuncios personalizados para tu privacidad digital. Para cancelar los anuncios personalizados en Windows, abre el menú Inicio, ve a Configuración > Privacidad > General y desactiva todas las opciones (Fig. 1).
Content type: Guide step
Disclaimer: With macOS Big Sur, Apple enriched the support for browser add-ons, which are now available at the App Store. Although the ecosystem for privacy tools is still sparse, we might update this guide in the future.
To access the settings menu, open the Safari app and on the menubar click on Safari > Preferences... (Fig. 1).
Content type: Guide step
Overview
Pi-hole is a general purpose network-wide ad-blocker that protects your network from ads and trackers without requiring any setup on individual devices. It is able to block ads on any network device (e.g. smart appliances), and, unlike browser add-ons, Pi-hole blocks ads on any type of software.
The general setup works as follows (Fig. 1). You install Pi-hole on your server (in this case, we're using a Raspberry Pi) and assign it a static IP address. On your router, you set the DNS…
Content type: Guide step
Setup
On the Internet, requests to access websites are routed to IP addresses. Since IP addresses are hard to remember, we usually address hosts by their host-name (e.g privacyinternational.org). As such, and because IP addresses can change frequently, when your computer wants to access a server by its host-name, it asks a DNS server what the IP address for that host-name is, so that it can route the request. Typically, your operating system first checks your system's hosts file for an address…
Content type: Guide step
Configuración
En internet, las solicitudes de acceso a sitios web se dirigen a direcciones IP. Dado que las direcciones IP son difíciles de recordar, solemos dirigirnos a los hosts por su nombre (por ejemplo, privacyinternational.org). Por eso, y porque las direcciones IP pueden cambiar con frecuencia, cuando tu computador quiere acceder a un servidor por el nombre del host, le pregunta a un servidor DNS cuál es la dirección IP de ese nombre del host, para poder enrutar la solicitud.…
Content type: Guide step
Warning: If you are using iOS 14+, targeted advertisements are opt-in by default.
We have written before about the risks that targeted advertisements pose in regards to your digital privacy.
If you want to opt-out of cross-app tracking, the first step is to go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking. Here, make sure to turn Allow Apps to Request to Track OFF (Fig. 1). This is your hands-off-my-data choice.
Tapping this tells the system not to share your Identifier for…
Content type: Guide step
DNS level content blocking prevents your device from connecting to known domains that will serve you unwanted ads and track you across all different apps and browsers on your device.
DNS or 'Domain Name System' is basically the 'phone book for the internet'. On the internet, all your requests to access websites are routed to IP addresses. Since IP addresses are sets of numbers and hard to remember, we usually address hosts by their much easier to remember host-name (e.g. privacyinternational.…
Content type: Guide step
Ad Blockers aim to prevent your browser from connecting to Ad servers and loading ads on webpages you are visiting. They can also block some parts of webpages that likely display ads. Blocking ads and connections to ad servers can help minimise the amount of data that the Adtech industry collects about you for targeted advertising.
Warning: Using an ad-blocker may cause some pages to display incorrectly or not at all. This guide also shows how you can modify the Ad Blocker's behaviour to allow…
Content type: Guide step
DNS level content blocking prevents your device from connecting to known domains that will serve you unwanted ads and track you across all different apps and browsers on your device.
DNS or 'Domain Name System' is basically the 'phone book for the internet'. On the internet, all your requests to access websites are routed to IP addresses. Since IP addresses are sets of numbers and hard to remember, we usually address hosts by their much easier to remember host-name (e.g. privacyinternational.…
Content type: Guide step
The Advertising ID is a unique identifier offered by the MacOS Operating System that advertisers might use to uniquely identify you. It facilitates the creation of a profile by advertisers or data brokers that can later be used for advertisement targeting or other purposes.
Opt out of targeted advertising
We have written before about the risks that targeted advertisements pose with regards to your digital privacy. To opt out of targeted ads on macOS, open the System Preferences app, go to the…
Content type: Guide step
uBlock Origin (que no debe confundirse con uBlock, que es un proyecto diferente) es un bloqueador de anuncios independiente y de código abierto que utiliza una lista depurada de servidores, y evita que tu navegador se conecte a estos servidores para mostrarte anuncios.
Nota: En el mercado hay muchos bloqueadores de anuncios y puedes ensayar alternativas. Al utilizar un bloqueador de anuncios independiente, de código abierto y gratuito, es más probable que evites usar productos con conflictos…
Content type: Guide step
Ad Blockers aim to prevent your browser from connecting to Ad servers and loading ads on webpages you are visiting. They can also block some parts of webpages that likely display ads. Blocking ads and connections to ad servers can help minimise the amount of data that the Adtech industry collects about you for targeted advertising.
Warning: Using an ad-blocker may cause some pages to display incorrectly or not at all. This guide also shows how you can modify the Ad Blocker's behaviour to allow…
Content type: Guide step
Para acceder a las configuraciones, haz clic en el menú de tres puntos de la parte superior derecha y pulsa Configuración > Privacidad, búsqueda y servicios (Fig. 1), o escribe edge://settings/privacy en la barra de direcciones URL y haz clic en intro.
Content type: Guide step
To access the settings, click on the three-dot menu on the upper right and then press Settings > Privacy, search, and services (Fig. 1), or type edge://settings/privacy in the URL bar and press Enter.
Content type: Guide step
Privacy Badger es una extensión para el navegador que bloquea los anuncios y los rastreadores para evitar que las empresas rastreen tus actividades en línea. Esta extensión lleva una lista actualizada de los rastreadores que detecta mediante pruebas automatizadas (que se hacen a través de servidores especializados y no desde tu computador) y periódicamente envía la lista actualizada a tu navegador. De este modo, cada vez que detecta nuevos servidores de anuncios (por ejemplo, si una nueva…
Content type: Guide step
Online trackers are small bits of code embedded directly into a website's main code which collect data points about you and your browsing activity. This may include the pages you visit, how long you spend on them, where you scroll and the links you click on. On top of the online advertising industry, there are other actors that can potentially make use of trackers to track your online activity, including governments and/or law enforcement agencies.
There are extensions you can add to your…
Content type: Guide step
Changing settings in Firefox menu
To change basic privacy settings in Firefox, access the preferences menu by clicking on Edit > Preferences on the menu-bar, or by entering about:preferences in the URL bar, and then click on Privacy & Security (Fig. 1).
Content type: Guide step
Browser cookies allow websites to preserve session data such as your login credentials or items in your shopping basket so that you don't lose information when you close the page. Unfortunately, cookies are also often abused to track your online activity across the web. Using a dedicated addon, you can clean your cookies regularily to ensure that no unwanted cookie is kept in your browser, limiting the efficiency of online trackers.
This guide takes you through the steps to install Cookie…
Content type: Guide step
Las cookies permiten que los sitios web guarden los datos de una sesión, como las credenciales de acceso o los artículos en el carrito de compras, con el propósito de que no pierdas la información al cerrar la página. Desafortunadamente, con frecuencia se abuse de las cookies para rastrear tu actividad en línea en la web. Utilizar una extensión especializada te permite limpiar las cookies con regularidad para asegurarte de que tu navegador no guarde ninguna cookie no deseada, lo que permite…