6. How Much Does The Internet Really Know About Me?
If you've ever Googled your own name you may have felt the horror of landing upon your old MySpace account from 2007 - there for the world to see is a horribly cringing selfie and a declaration of your love for My Chemical Romance. Yeah, it's embarrassing, but the Internet has a lot more of you stored up its sleeve of search engines. In most cases, you've willingly given up your privacy and provided this information yourself. Everything you do on the web has been saved and archived: on Facebook, on Twitter, every place online where you've created an account. Google has a record of every search you've ever made. Your stomach curled just then, didn't it? 'Clear browser history' can't save you now, my friends. Without even realising it, you've already been infiltrated by the Internet overlords. Websites install software on your computer secretly, sometimes with a simple 'cookie', which reports your surfing habits back to companies so they can target you in the future. These cookies tell advertisers where you live, your age, sex occupation and of course, what you get up to online. Creeped out dot com.