The AI Summit for Small Businesses in LA is May 15, 2025 at the Intuit Dome. Learn to use online AI tools to rebuild your business, reach customers and improve funding. Free registration is now open »

Home | Digital Literacy | Online Privacy

Your Technology Is Tracking You. Take These Steps For Better Online Privacy

Laurel Wamsley

NPR

Oct 13, 2021

Online Privacy: Eyes watching women on phone

Before I became a reporter at NPR, I worked for a few years at tech companies.

One of the companies was in the marketing technology business — the industry that's devoted in part to tracking people and merging their information, so they can be advertised to more effectively.

That tracking happens in multiple senses: physical tracking, because we carry our phones everywhere we go. And virtual tracking, of all the places we go online.

The more I understood how my information was being collected, shared and sold, the more I wanted to protect my privacy. But it's still hard to know which of my efforts is actually effective and which is a waste of time.

So I reached out to experts in digital security and privacy to find out what they do to protect their stuff – and what they recommend most to us regular folks.

Here's what they told me: