The Challenge is Growing, But So Are Your Options for Overcoming it
The consumer demand for more personalized experiences with businesses and advertisers is growing with each passing year. In order for advertisers to best provide consumers with the most personalized experience, they must collect personal information. These data points are based on a more intimate view into your person than the traditional information gathered by advertisers which has previously been known as personally identifiable information. Personally identifiable information or PII includes such things as:
- Name
- Address
- Phone Number
- Racial Identity
- Sexual Orientation
- Religious Preferences
While these bits of data are considered general information, personal information is gathered based on subjective decisions which you make online. The utilization of personal information is how Netflix recommends movies and TV shows based on your watch history and how online stores develop recommended products for you. Similarly, advertisers collect this information in order to offer you the most personalized experience possible.
There are laws which help protect your personal information and PII from misuse such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is enforced by the EU, and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which is enforced by the state of California, but there are steps which you can—and should—take to protect your privacy.
Choose what and how you share information on social media
– Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all have privacy settings built into their platforms. In these settings, you can easily control who sees what you post, what data the platform may share with advertisers, and even if you want a personalized ad experience. Each of the “big three” social media platforms has controls for location settings and whom you would like to give the ability to see/interact with your posts – both are important to limit so that the wrong people do not come across your information.
Utilize creative passwords
– Google Chrome offers you an automatically generated password on every website which requires you to set up an account – while you may be hesitant to use the suggested password, it is the safest way to protect your accounts. Password requirements have become far more stringent over the last couple of decades with good reason. You should not use the same passwords for different sites, and similarly those different passwords should not be rooted in personal information such as birthdays, anniversaries, or familial names. Creating new passwords and remembering them all can look like a big task, but consider using a password manager in order to secure each account.
Reserve yourself from solicitations
– Cold calls have been falling out of style since the rise of the internet, but “cold call” style emails and text messages have taken their place. Thankfully, you can register with services that will reduce these solicitations such as the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service and the National Do Not Call Registry. Both resources provide resources to reduce solicitations from companies in which you are not interested, while still receiving offers from businesses with which you would like to do business.
Use browser extensions
– Browser extensions are add-ons which you can install in order to limit what ads you see and how advertisers can see you. The most popular information-management add-on is AdBlock, but others such as DuckDuckGo’s extension, Disconnect, and uBlock can all provide additional privacy features to your internet experience. One of the biggest perks of utilizing these extensions is the ability to “set it and forget it” – once your preferences are in place, the extensions run in the background of your browser whenever you use it to access the internet.
Protecting your data is important
– advertisers and data collectors have their legal requirements to keep your data secure, but you have a role to play as well. In order to ensure that your data is safe, take these steps and be aware of malicious parties looking to deceive you. Never give your personal information out to anyone you do not know, and protect your personal information against theft while you’re online.
