Alter Ego

What does this privacy tool protect you against?

Apps and advertisers like to know what YOU like. This helps them show you ads, improve their services and sometimes make money by selling your data. They can do this in many ways: by looking at what ads you click on; by asking you in sneaky ways such as quizzes, surveys or contests; and by the videos you watch.
How can you apply Alter Ego privacy tools?

1. Use browsers and websites that let you opt out of getting personalized ads. (A browser is an app or program you use to visit websites, such as Chrome or Firefox.) While you’ll still see advertisements, they won’t be based on what they know about you and there will be limits on how much data about you can be collected.

2. Recognize all of the sneaky ways that companies might try to collect personal data about you – and know what information you have to give out to do something online, and what you can skip, are all examples of using your Alter Ego privacy tool in real life.

Time to do a little investigation of your own!

Go to My Activity https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity and see what it says about what you’ve done, watched and searched with Google products.

Click on Activity Controls on the left side of the page.  Scroll down the page. Which activities are being tracked (the blue slider on the right) and which are being paused (the
grey slider on the left)? Are there any activities that are being tracked that you would prefer to pause, so that data isn’t collected?