Recently there has been a lot of talk and confusion over Google apparently tracking everything that you do online.  News agencies have been telling us that our "personal information is not safe" and that we need to stop using Google and move to another search engine or service.  But before you do so you need to understand what is really happening, and what the news agencies are not telling you.

To give you a little backstory, everything that we use that is free on the internet costs someone money.  Most likely it's the website that you are using that foots the bill for all of the free services.  You may not even realize it, but there's a lot more out that that you may not even realize you're using that is costing someone money.  If you use a web-based email (i.e. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, etc.) that is a free service that you use.  But every time you check your email (or even by justing have an email address on that server) you are using a computer somewhere that someone has to pay for.  You're not paying for it, but you're benefitting from that computer being connected to the interent and turned on.  If you watch videos on YouTube you are connecting to a web server that has mass amounts of hard drive storage space.  Someone bought those drives and put them into the server, just like you buying a hard drive at Staples, Best Buy, Office Depot, etc.  The only difference is you normally only buy one drive, but web hosting companies buy hundreds of drives at a time.

The second thing that you don't realize that you are using, but you use everytime you get online, is the bandwidth used to transfer the data from the web server that the site is hosted on.  The cost of bandwidth is an enormous expense to any popular website or search company.  YouTube serves over 1 billion page views per day and an estimated cost of (some estimates vary) $174,000 per year.  That's how much it costs Google just to let you watch free videos on the internet.  Facebook users enjoy the free online social media giant at a similar cost of $183,000/yr.

So how do these companies afford to pay for the huge costs associated with all of the free stuff they let us use?  By putting various advertisements on every page we see.  And to help them generate even more revnue from these ads, all of these companies are expanding the service to offer ads relevent to what you are looking at, interested in, or buying from verious web sites.  So, if you look at shoes online you're going to notice that you see a lot of ads for shoes and footcare products.  If you search for deals on Disney vacations you're going to see ads for Disney brabded kids books, toys, clothing, etc.  Recently I did a search for trailer hitches for my wife's Jeep Grand Cherokee.  Now I'm seeing ads for trailer equipment everywhere I go.  This is called target marketing, allowing these website to show you ads based on what you are most likely to be interested in.  So if you're of the older generation, instead of seeing ads for video games you'll maybe see ads for various healthcare products for your age range.  If you're a woman you might see ads promoting feminine hygene products, where if you're a man you'll see ads promoting power tools.

Now for the question...how do these sites know what I'm interested in, or if I'm a man or a woman?  Is somebody looking at what I type into my web browser or spying on me?  The answer is no.  All of this information is collected by every website that you go to, and is stored in a database.  That information is then ran through a program that picks out key words and matches it to keywords built into the various ads that you see.  No single person (or even a group of people for that matter) could ever sift through the tremendous amount of data that is collected in a single day, or even a single hour.  There are litterally billions of searches done by people all over the world.  Sites know where you go online, and what products or items you look at, because they have ads on almost every webpage you go to.  Google ads are all over the place.  Facebook ads, the "like" buttons you see on sites, and "share this" buttons are everywhere you turn.  Truthfully, the only way to not be "tracked" is by not using the internet at all.

Leo Laporte, one of the most prominent names in technology, summed it up well in his explanation that recently aired on his weekly radio show.  For those of you who don't know of him, Leo has been reporting on the tech industry since the early 80's, and has assembled a massive online network of podcasts and technology shows.  He is the former host of the ScreenSavers show that used to air on former TechTV broadcast station.  He is very well-known in the tech industry, and respected just the same.  Click the play button below to hear the audio clip where he talks about this subject in episode 854 of The Tech Guy radio show.

Leo Laporte on Google

So are we being tracked?  In one sense of the word yes, but not how you think, and certainly not how the news agencies are portraying it.  The media has an agenda, and that agenda is to keep their ratings up.  What better way to do this then to get everyone up in arms about their privacy and/or their personal information.

The real problem is not what a website does with your information, or how they collect it.  The bigger problem is that people think that their information is private.  If you use the internet, especially any of the social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) your information can be made public without you knowing.  Facebook has taken a lot of heat over the way they constantly make changes to the privacy settings on your account.  And they aren't the only ones who do this.  The best rule of thumb that you can live by is this...if you put it online make sure it's something that you wouldn't be ashamed of if everyone in the world knew.  At some point in time everything that you put out there will be made public, even if you have it set to be private.

Steve Jobs was the visionary co-founder, and later chief executive, of Apple, makers of the Macintosh computer, the iMac, the iPod, iPad, and iPhone, and the man behind the astonishing success of the computer animation firm Pixar, makers of Toy Story and Finding Nemo. As a result, he did more to determine what films we watch, how we listen to music, and how we work and play than any other person on the planet.

Internet security has become a major issue these days. The threat of viruses, spyware, adware, security holes, and many other "bugs" have made a lot of people almost afrad to do anything on the internet. People spend hundreds of dollars everyday on the latest firewall software, hardware, anti-virus and spyware programs, and other programs just so they have that peace of mind that they are safe. Yet, even though have the "latest and greatest" in technology, you are still susceptable to security problems which could very well cost you more than that $30.00 program you just bought

For those of you wondering how to secure yourself on the internet to prevent spam, viruses, spyware, and any of the other security-related threats that internet users face everyday, here is a list of the top 5 things that you can do to be safer on the internet.

1.) DON'T click on web page links in emails - By clicking on a link, you might be taken to webpage that looks identical to the one that you were expecting to go to. However, you have actually been taken to a hackers website that was made to look exactly like a legitimate site. Good examples of these sites include emails supposedly from eBay, Paypal, your bank or financial institution, college, or any other site asking for personal information. By entering your information (i.e. login username/password, SSN#, bank account number, etc.), you are freely and willingly giving your information to a hacker that will in turn steal your identity, money, etc. If you receive an email that looks like it is from eBay, Paypal, your bank, etc. DO NOT click on the link. Instead, open your internet browser, and manually type in the website address that you would use to login. This eliminates the possibility of you giving your information to someone who really shouldn't have it. How many of you clicked on a link in an email to get to this webpage? Good thing I'm not a hacker huh?

2.) DON'T open email attachments - Even if you know who is sending you the attachment, this is still a big problem. In 1999 the famous Melissa Virus was spread through emails that came from someone the person knew, but that person never actually sent the email. If you receive an attachment, contact the person that sent it and ask them if they sent you an attachment. If you work in a office, and use email to send documents back and forth, contact the sender and make sure that they actually sent the email. Viruses cause thousands of dollars worth of damage every year, but can be prevented by taking the necessary precautions.

3.) Update your computer regularly - Every second Tuesday of each month, Microsoft releases security updates to the Windows operating system. These updates are VERY important, and should NOT be skipped. If there is an immediate security problem, Microsoft will release what's called an "Out of Cycle" update. These updates are for immediate security holes that appear throughout the remaining days in between updates. For Windows, you should have your Automatic Update Settings set to download and install the updates on a regular schedule. This will ensure that your computer is constantly kept up-to-date if Microsoft should release an "Out of Cycle" update. For Mac users, your updates are just as important. Use the Software Update feature located under the Apple menu to keep your system up-to-date.

4.) Use a hardware firewall - Most users have broadband internet access available in their area. This type of connection is "always on" and usually never protected. Regardless if you only have one computer, or an entire network of computers, you need to have a hardware firewall protecting you from outside attacks. These days, any router that you purchase has a built-in firewall to prevent outside parties from accessing your internal network. By properly installing a router, and configuring the security settings, you can be assured that you are better protected. Wireless routers are ideal, and can be setup using WPA encryption to prevent unauthorized access to your wireless network. This allows you to connect a laptop, portable game system, or other game systems to your network, without having to run network cable throughout your house.

5.) Download files from a known source - Downloading files from the internet can also be potentially risky. However, don't be discouraged from downloading a trial version of popular software titles, providing the download is from a popular, well-known website. Sites such as Download.com, Tucows, and other software search engines are usually safe, due to the rigorous test that the applications go through before they are made available for download. These days, peer-to-peer sharing sites are more popular than ever. There is a risk of downloading a virus, spyware, adware, or other program when using these sites. We do not in any way condone downloading illegal software, music, or otherwise copy-protected files. However, if you choose to use these networks, be careful what files you choose to download. Use common sense when looking at the file size. If that song that you've been waiting to hear is only 197kb in size, it's definitely a virus, spyware, or other. Also make sure that you anti-virus software is fully up-to-date before opening any file that you download from anywhere.