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Your digital footprints matter!


Every day, whether we want to or not, most of us contribute to a growing portrait of who we are online; a portrait that is probably more public than we assume.


This portrait helps companies target content at specific markets and consumers, helps employers look into your background, and helps advertisers track your movements across multiple websites. Whatever you do online, you might be leaving digital footprints behind. So no matter what you do online it’s important that you know what kind of trail you’re leaving, and what the possible effects can be.


While it’s not possible to have ZERO footprints, the first steps toward reducing your digital footprint and managing your digital identity are not that hard. Your digital footprint is all the stuff you leave behind as you use the Internet. Comments on social media, Skype calls, app use and email records- it’s part of your online history and can potentially be seen by other people, or tracked in a database.


Retailers and product review sites often leave cookies on your system which can track your movement from site-to-site, allowing targeted advertisements that can show you products you’ve been recently reading about or looking at online.


All those +1s, Retweets, and Facebook comments (even private ones) leave a record. Make sure you know what the default privacy settings are for your social media accounts, and keep an eye on them. Sites often introduce new policies and settings that increase the visibility of your data. They may rely on you just clicking “OK” to whatever terms they are introducing, without reading them.


Some websites will build a list of different devices you have used to visit those sites. While this can often be used as a way to help secure your account, it is important to understand the information being collected about your habits.


Make no mistake about it – the web is listening every time you use it! It’s important that you understand what you’re leaving behind when you visit a website.


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Ansh Singhal

Grade 10, DLDAV MODEL SCHOOL , Shalimar Bagh, New Delhi

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