Keeping Private Information Private Online

When most people are online they think they are safe and secure from threats.  Little do they know that making even one mistake can put all of your personal information in jeopardy.  Whenever you go to a website it creates a cookie on your computer, a cookie is a small text-file containing encoded information about what you did on the website. Say I just bought a new book on a 3rd party website.  This website now has all my personal information and could sell it to advertisers which can lead to lots of unwanted spam and junk mail. 

(Referenced  http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cookie5.htm)

If you are worried about spam and junk mail you may want to avoid any opt-in programs called Deep-Packet-Inspection.  This program tracks all your online activities and collects information about you and sells this information to advertisers who then try to sell you products according to the information they gathered.

(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040304052.html)

Because of online computer threats I always make sure that I have the latest antivirus to help detect possible dangerous cookies and to protect against virus's. Additionally I only buy from trusted online retail sellers and never opt-in to any of those weird programs that my Internet Service Provider may try to trick you into.