5 Tips to find out what Google Knows about you and How to Protect your privacy online

Several years ago before we started getting used to Google and Bing search engines, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and the craziness of Instagram, Snapchat, etc.  There was something we all enjoyed, well at least to some extent and that was ‘Privacy’ and not having our personal information or data being sold to the highest bidder in the industry.

We all say how much we want our lives to be kept private. But in this age and time where technology is taking up every single room left. What do we need to keep our information private? Can we actually do that?Before we dig into that let’s get you settled on some things you can do to find out what private information about you is online.

5 Tips to find out what Google Knows about you and how to protect your Information

These tips are certain measures into taking absolute control of your privacy online and not living with the idea that theres absolutely nothing a criminal can get online about you.

1. Google your name using quotation marks, like “Ada Yusuf Babalola” and make sure to check what pops up and most of the search tabs including the images.
2. Google your phone number, you never know what website or webcrawlers have gotten a hold of that. If you do find your number it probably means it’s time to change your number and ditch the old one. This is to avoid getting calls from strangers and frauds.
3. Google your home address.
4. Google your email address, Passport ID number or national ID.
5. Do a Google reverse image search of your most-recently
   shared photos.

Don’t be scared if you find out a lot of thing about you, that you didn’t think was online. It’s way better to know, make plans and fix whatever damage that has been done than living in the dark.

5 Privacy Tips to keep your Information Private from appearing on Google’s Search

Here are 5 tips to help keep your private information from appearing on Google’s search in no particular order.

1. Use different email addresses for different online accounts. That way You can set them up to forward email to the address you actually check and not have your real address appearing on google.
2. View your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ profiles as someone else, so you see what else they are seeing. Afterwards you can adjust the privacy settings.
3. Use a post office address when purchasing products or services online, that way your house address isn’t going to appear and it would be just the post office.
4. Don’t leave real phone numbers or address online, when visiting an office or attending an event. You never know where those registers go and how secure the website is.
5. Install two or three antitracking plug-ins and extensions in your browser, such as AdBlock Plus, Disconnect, Abine’s Blur, or Ghostery.

To end this i would say Privacy is a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people. Though online privacy may be hard to observe, it doesn’t mean it can’t be achieved.

The good thing is once these steps are observed,it becomes easier and eventually leads to a clean digital habit.