361 million users were online circa 2000, which is less than the total population of Facebook today. The rapid growth of Web use all over the planet has given rise to anonymous browsing, or a process by which you can get online without leaving a digital trail of crumbs. Your digital trail can allow competitors to scour the web and collect data that lets them know what you are up to. This process will hinder your brand protection strategies, and competitive analysis is increasingly based more on web data scraping and web data mining, processes that can be very invasive when your competitors pay for them. Everything from credit card info to the sites you visit or content you share can be discovered by clever web users. Companies interested in tracking your activity online, particularly competitors, are able to find ways around basic privacy measures, which is why the Federal Trade Commission would like to establish a do not track mechanism to allow business users of the web to protect themselves at a federal level.

Your Internet protocol address, or numerical label assigned to devices connected to the web, is how your digital foot prints get left. Most online privacy software will help anonymize this address. Affordable online privacy software may not be as reliable as premium online privacy software, though having some form of online privacy should be a priority for every organization. Learn more about how to keep your web activity private by contacting online privacy consultants today.
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