My Results: How Is Data Shared?
Communicate About Privacy
Request privacy from companies and services that have data about your offline activities, such as healthcare, banking, insurance, and utility providers. Specifically, opt out of sharing your information with third parties. Use these guides to help you navigate opt-out procedures:
- Video and Guides from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services: Health Information Privacy: Guidance Materials for Consumers
- Stop Data Mining Me: Opt-Out List
- How to opt out of Facebook data sharing
Learn About Online Privacy
Check out apps, sites, and services before you use them. Read the privacy policy; if you don't like what it says about what the provider will do with your data and who they may share it with, you can do business with a different provider (even if it means paying slightly more—a "privacy premium").
- General Guide to What to Look For: Learn How to Read a Privacy Policy
If you can't bring yourself to read through the official Privacy Policies, use a cheat sheet like one of these:
- Ratings Based on Whether Apps Collect Only the Information You Expect: Privacy Grade: Grading the Privacy of Smartphone Apps
- Ratings of How Sites Protect Your Information from Government Requests: Who Has Your Back (2018 Edition)
Manage Your Profiles
If an app or site asks for your personal information, weigh the benefits before giving it.
- Ask yourself: Do they really need this information to provide the service? What permissions are they asking for and do they really need access to that information?
- If you don't know how an organization or service will use your information—either because they don't say or because their privacy policy is too unclear for you to read—consider not giving it to them, or at least limiting what information you give them.
- Don't fill in non-required fields.
- You may be able to give false information in the required fields if it's not necessary to the service you're getting. However, you should check the provider's terms of service first to make sure they do not require that your personal information be correct. Don't give false information to banks, government agencies, and other highly regulated services, as it may be illegal.
- Watch these short videos to see how much information we give away without thinking.
Resources to Learn More About the Topic
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Data Mining and the Limits of De-Identification
- Comic Explaining Many Ways Data Mining Is Used: Terms of Service
- Here’s why you may never be truly anonymous in a big data world
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Data Sharing and Data Brokers
- Explanations, Advice, and Resources About the Value of Your Information: Information About You on the Internet Will Be Used by Somebody in Their Interest
- Video About the Information You Share on a Daily Basis: A Day in Your Life
- In-Depth Explanation of Data Aggregation, Inference, and Consumer Profiling: Ethical Implications of Data Aggregation
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Third-Party Ad Serving
- Helpful FAQ about Third-Party Ad Serving: AllAboutCookies.org - FAQ Section
- Visualization, Using Business Names, of How Third-Party Ad Serving Works: The Display Advertising Technology Landscape
