Regardless of the privacy precautions you attempt to take, there’s someone somewhere who can view everything that you carry out online: that’s your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Your entire downloads and uploads go through your ISP’s infrastructure, making them a perfectly positioned middleman who are aware of your browsing habits and much more.
The moment an ISP has your data, many things take place. For instance, it can be sold to the highest bidder available, handed over to government authorities when needed, or read and analyzed for reasons you don’t know.
Sadly, not all is lost. When it comes to matters concerning online privacy, there are plenty of steps that you can take if you intend to wipe out your browsing history to prevent some sites from tracking all your moves.
Even though some are more efficient than others, if you are particular about your online privacy, any one of these options is better than just sitting down and doing nothing. So, is your ISP tracking you? The simple answer to this burning question is yes!
What Can Your ISP See?
Acting as a middleman on your data journey to or from the Internet, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) can monitor and catalog almost everything you do online. Your entire online activities can be seen with a lot of ease from the eyes of your ISP.
The moment you log in to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or just connect to the internet, you do so using an IP address that your ISP assigns. So, if you look at it, you’re technically using their network and equipment to gain access to the internet.
Therefore, that puts your Internet Service Provider (ISP) in a primary position to see the following:
- The websites and services that you visit
- The source of information that’s encrypted
- The contents of unencrypted downloads and websites
- The dates and times of almost everything
- Your actual location and the time you spend on the internet
In addition to seeing all the information mentioned above, your ISP can tie everything to the address and name of an account holder (this may or may not be you).
Why is Your ISP Tracking You?
On most occasions, there’s probably no one spending their time behind a desk and monitoring every move you make. However, that certainly does not mean that their systems do not store your browsing history or share or sell it to third parties.
For many reasons, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) keeps track of all your clicks. These providers are in business, aiming to maximize their revenues. Therefore, your browsing history is a considerable revenue stream for them. Most ISPs gather anonymous browsing logs before selling them to marketing firms.
Lately, some internet providers are moving to make privacy concerns a premium add-on. This means they can use your browsing history and market you as websites do. Furthermore, data collected by your ISP can easily be accessed by third-party firms such as government agencies or the police.
How Your ISP Profits from Tracking You
Are you aware that ISPs are selling your data? Surprisingly, a lot of them say that they don’t. That’s a big lie since data is a highly lucrative business. An apt example of this is Google. Google knows almost everything you like, pushing the type of adverts you like your way. This is because Google captures records of what you like and prefer.
Your Internet Service Provider works almost the same way Google does. After storing your data, they forge partnerships with marketers and advertisers who push their ads to a particular demographic region.
Even though these advertisers and marketers refute that the ads they send to people aren’t linked to IP addresses, the truth is that this is actually the case. To add insult to injury, President Trump repealed the proposed online privacy laws, a move that gave ISPs more freedom in using the data they gather and profiting from it by selling it to marketers and advertisers.
How to Stop Your ISP from Tracking You
Now that your ISP can track you, is there anything that you can do to minimize or completely prevent your ISPs from tracking you? There are several effective ways of doing so, as highlighted below:
- Employ the use of Tor for anonymous browsing: As a vast network made of virtual tunnels, Tor allows an internet user to browse while leaving no traces. Its highly protected relay system makes it highly secure.
- Use HTTPS: Before proceeding, you need to understand that not all internet activity is encrypted. However, using HTTPS instead of HTTP will assure you that your data is encrypted, making it highly secure.
- Use a VPN: A VPN network offers state-of-the-art encryption and robust protocols that protect your digital presence from prying eyes. Get a VPN and securely browse the web without worrying about ISP or any other entity from snooping on you.
- Adjust your DNS: Make sure to check what DNS your laptop or computer is using before setting it to a third-party provider such as OpenDNS.
PureVPN
September 20, 2024
4 months ago
