The Complete Guide to Internet Privacy

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Internet e-mail itself is not secure. It travels along the Net in plain text that others can read if they tap in. If you want to be sure that only your intended recipient can read e-mail that you send to them, you can get the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) Freeware program that plugs into Eudora and Microsoft Outlook e-mail programs. PGP tools are available through www.pgpi.org . To use PGP you have to create and make available a private encryption key that you keep to yourself, and a public key that you share with others so they can decode the mail you send to them. These keys are similar in nature to the security that is used between your Web browser and an e-commerce Web site to convey credit card and personal information for online shopping. You can also sign up for a secure e-mail account with www.privacyx.com , which supports Netscape e-mail features and Microsoft Outlook.

5. SURF SMART
The point of Web sites is to have visitors see things on them, and Web server software can keep track of a lot of things about your connection to them and the pages you view. As often as not, this is harmless and no personal identification is collected or sent anywhere.

To "personalize" this viewing experience, a Web site may issue what is called a "cookie" to your browser software. A cookie can be a small-text file that contains plain or coded information about the Web pages you've visited, and it can stay on your lo cal hard drive for an indefinite length of time. Text-file cookies are usually persistent and accumulate as you surf the Web.

A cookie can also be a few temporary bits, like a bookmark in memory, which disappear after a period of time or when you close your browser program.

Netscape users can control whether or not cookies can be read by any Web site, or if they can only be read by the Web site that sent them. Both Internet Explorer and Netscape users can choose to be warned about cookies or to deny them entirely. My preference is to use Netscape and its "only by the site that sent it" cookie mode under the Edit, Preferences, Advanced menu. IE users do not have similar granular control. Cookies are not all bad, but they can be used to track your Web activity. Tracking cookie activity is an amazing lesson in how aggressively some Web sites are at keeping tabs on you (just calling up one popular site called www.citysearch.com for a few seconds resulted in over a dozen cookies being sent to my computer). Currently, the government is urging vendors to adopt new methods of personalizing Web visits without threatening privacy concerns.

In any case, do not volunteer information (called opt-in, a deliberate option to participate) by filling out surveys, contest forms or other things that ask for personal information - it may return as a cookie and match up again on your next visit to a Web site. If you do want to provide personal data, make sure the sites you visit have obtained a privacy and security endorsement from a recognized third party such as BBB Online or Truste, or at least have a bona fide privacy statement you can live with. That should mean the site is not gathering personal information or, if they obviously are, that they're not using it against you. They should also let you opt out of any data-gathering, sharing processes or mailing lists. Unfortunately, none of this means that you are actually removed from any list, or that someone is not stealing the information otherwise.

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