Driven to Using Tor Browser, DuckDuckGo, Now Under the Radar

I have not created a blog on here in some time and thought it is about time to do one. I hope it will be helpful to some on here.

There is one thing I greatly appreciate about Wealthy Affiliate - what is taught here on one of the best forms of marketing there is. No marketing is perfect, but there is no doubt that affiliate marketing is one of the least invasive model there is, and when teaching it, Wealthy Affiliate does it right!

The sour note here is that I have left Chrome and Google for most of my time on the Internet these days. It doesn't mean I would never use these, but I have greatly diminished their use.

There are types of marketing being done these days that drives cyber technology to its limits and not only is it here to stay, it's getting worse!

Retargeting/Behavioural Marketing

These models take the cake on being the most evil and creepy forms that there is and what is forboding about it is - it's widespread and rampart like never before. In a few words, to the best of my knowledge, retargeting and behavioural marketing are one in the same though I may be wrong about this.

In essence, when you go to almost any website these days, especially those where you purchase products and services, looking, for example, a specific pair of shoes. When you visit that page, the system sends a cookie to your device. The cookie instructs the browser on the device to display adverts of that pair of shoes, or similar ones. But the creepy thing about it is that this is done without your knowledge (if you are not aware of this process,) and receiving adverts on a totally unrelated page you may visit later. That's it! This is the practice of retarget marketing. As for behavioural, the difference may be that you will get advertising that is based on your browsing preferences whereas retargeting usually involves the re-appearance of adverts about the product page you visited.

It's legal but it's completely unethical, sneaky and dowright despicable.

It Pays to View Privacy Policies

They are quite revealing. By law these must be provided and some of them will scare the pants off of you!

The insurance for my motorcycle is approaching its due day. I've already paid it. However on the free-for-all Gmail (which is far more secure than most of those free email services like Yahoo! and the like) you're fair game to a multitude of creeps we know as insurance companies and many other industries that pry information on you any way they can so they can market to you!
On my birthday - yes, that was yesterday, I received an email advert from coveragehunter dot com. Yes, that's auto tag time and they know that this is most likely when insurance is due as well! Never heard of the company but they sure know a lot about me! For one - in their eyes, I'm just another "consumer" for them to put a sucker hose to my wallet! I went to their privacy policy page. It's not the worst one I've seen but I will spare you that. It's quite long and not the place to put it on here so I will provide a link....
https://www.everquote.com/privacy-policy/

Note that this is a separate website. One look at this made me head for the hills! It will give you an idea what these snakes do! This type of thing is just everywhere! Almost cannot get away from it anymore. Get on board with a company like this, this is what you get!

Doesn't this make you appreciate Wealthy Affiliate a little more? Sure does me!

The Legal Data Miners...

The first thing that crops up in my mind is Facebook, but it's far from being the only one nor the most notorious. However useful social media is to the affiliate marketer, I tend to stay away from these. I do have a Facebook account but rarely use it. I also have FB Fluff Purity for it - a program that allows you to do the kind of things you can't do on Facebook without it.
It allows you to remove advertising, modules, just about any type of posts you would like to divorce from and this list is endless! But - it's not always foolproof. Facebook knows it's out there and does change its algorithms to thwart the program's functionality.

Do you think that, when you delete something off Facebook, that it's gone for good? Think again! You may think it's gone, but Facebook maintains a "ghost account" on you. Even when you don't have an account with them, better think twice before you declare "All's Clear!" They have a "shadow account" on those who don't have regular accounts with them!
Social media doesn't play very nice but it gets much worse...

There are data-mining websites out there that routinely pick up on more than you know about yourself! These are the places you go to find out if your spouse is cheating on you or a friend has committed some crime that you don't know about. These are snoop sites. There are a lot of them out there and can ruin the lives of those who do not deserve it. It is true they can also protect the innocent, but they're sneaky, kniving and you are game to them if you use the Internet like you are expected to.

Why Tor and DuckDuckGo?

I have nothing to hide. I have not done anything that would cause me to want to go in hiding or under the radar. I have no criminal record, not even as much as a traffic violatiion in the last 20 years! I have no interest in accessing the Dark Web. I have no ulterior motives in using these. It is unfortunate there are degenerates who use them for what they are not intended for and have given them a bad name. I have no reason to hide from anyone, but there is one thing I deplore...

Creeps who will do just about anything to find out about me so they can market to me! Sounds like sneezing at a gnat, but I deplore this! It's cyberconsumerism and it fries my behind!

These things will not do much to help me at this point with regard to my credentials being out there for everyone and anyone to see with a few clicks of the mouse, but what I can stop is the on-going junk that comes with using conventional browsers and search engines. Eventually, what's out there already will fade in time.

These also provide added security when browsing since they provide encryption of the packets as they travel through cyberspace. I have to do a little more work insofar as supplying passwords every time but this is a small deal when it comes to gaining back my privacy when I am on the Internet.

I also run Linux. It doesn't come with the BS that comes with Microsoft Windows and even to an extent, Apple. Linux does require more user intervention and does come with a learning curve, but it's free and you don't get marketed to by its makers or third party vendors. You do have to authenticate more often when for example, when you add or remove a program on the system.

When affiliate marketing, one would do better to be out there on the conventional lines but, when it comes to shopping and entertainments, better to do that from underground. There's nothing wrong with maintaining one's personal privacy!
I will probably have some things to say about this on my campaign for WA, but one thing is for sure - it's a way to tie in the relatively-safe form of marketing that is taught here at Wealthy Affiliate! I have at least three articles or more from what I've said here!
Daniel