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How to Stay Safe from Excessive Data Collection Online
LAST UPDATED: DEC 03, 2024
Excessive Data Collection on your devices can expose your personal information to third parties, risking your privacy and leading to targeted ads. Taking simple steps can help protect your online privacy.
What is Excessive Data Collection?
Excessive Data Collection occurs when browsers, websites, or even applications gather more information than necessary. This may include:
Browsing history
Search queries
Location data
Personal identifiers such as email addresses
While some data collection is essential for functionality, excessive tracking can compromise your privacy and security.
How to spot Excessive Data Collection?
Being aware of these signs can help you avoid services that collect too much personal data.
Frequent and Persistent Permission Requests Websites asking for unnecessary access to your cookie permission, location, contacts, or camera could be collecting too much data.
Overly Personalized Ads Highly specific ads based on your activities may indicate excessive tracking.
Complicated Privacy Policies Long or unclear privacy policies that share data with multiple third parties are a red flag.
Forced Account Creation Requiring an account for basic features or asking for sensitive information may signal data over-collection.
Slow Websites Websites that perform slowly may be running multiple trackers in the background.
What are the ways to avoid Excessive Data Collection?
Disable Third-Party Cookies: Go to your browser's settings, select Privacy & Security, and block third-party cookies or trackers.
Enable “Do Not Track” Feature: Turn on the Do Not Track feature in your browser to limit tracking by websites.
Clear Browsing Data Regularly: Delete cookies, cache, and history regularly to remove stored data using ID Protection.