Trying to protect your online data? Consumer Reports’ Permission Slip app can help you do just that.
If you’ve been using the internet for any period of time, it’s more than likely that pieces of your online personal data are scattered all over the place. Every time you sign up for a new social media platform or purchase something online, for example, you give those companies chunks of your personal information.
That private information is collected by both companies and data brokers — which can then sell it to other companies who can use it to sell ads targeted at you. If you’re anything like me, you gave out your online data willy-nilly when signing up for rewards programs, for example, without knowing what you were really doing. And you’re paying for it now with ads that track you across the internet. But Consumer Reports now has an app called Permission Slip that can reach out to companies on your behalf to order them to stop selling your information.
Read on to find out how exactly to use Permission Slip to reassert some control over your online data. Plus, here are six tips to help keep your data private and why you need a password manager.
To help you claw back a bit of your personal data, some states have passed legislation that allows you to exercise some control over what happens to it. Depending on the state, you can prohibit data brokers from selling your data or delete your online data outright. But the process of controlling your data on websites can be confusing, and it’s often unclear whether you’ve opted in or out of selling your personal data.
