Go ahead: Resolve to be healthy in 2024 and get your financial house in order. But 2024 may also be the year you decide to take control of the personal data you share across the internet.
Your online personal data is scattered all over the web. Every time you sign up for a new social media platform or purchase something online, you give those companies bits and pieces of your personal data.
These pieces of your data are then collected by both companies and data brokers — which then sell it to other companies that can use your info to sell ads targeted at you. If you’ve given out your online data liberally, you’re paying for it now with ads that track you across the internet.
The fix to this can be somewhat complicated and confusing. Consumer Reports, however, has an app called Permission Slip that reaches out to companies on your behalf and orders them to stop selling your information.
Read on to find out exactly how to use Permission Slip to reassert some control over your online data. Plus, here are our picks for the best VPNs to protect your privacy online and the best password managers to keep your login information secure.
What is Permission Slip?
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. And due to the nature of how your data is shopped around, it could be nearly impossible to locate all of your online data and protect it.
This is where services like Consumer Reports’ Permission Slip come in. Permission Slip does the legwork of collecting the places that might have your data, including more than 100 companies that use your personal information. All you have to do is submit your…
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