Can ISPs Sell your Data and Personal Information?
Have you ever wondered if your internet service provider tracks your internet data and history? Since they provide you with your internet service, it’s to no surprise that every bit of information you are exchanging, receiving or sending on the internet, goes through your ISP. Depending on where you live and your country’s regulations, your ISP can keep and use your information in a number of different ways. But, can ISPs sell your data to advertisers and third parties? Read this week’s Zlog and find out.
How and Why Can your ISP See Your Activities?
Your ISP can monitor and see every website you interact with when online. To put this into perspective, we’ll use the example of social networking websites. When you access a social website like Facebook or Instagram, you are (un)willingly allowing them to track your activities and interests in exchange for using their service. So if you don’t want to be tracked, you can simply stay away from using websites that do this.
When it comes to ISP’s, you’re stripped of this choice. Even though you’re paying for internet access, your information is being monitored by the ISP. You cant opt out of it unless you decide not to use the internet entirely. To be completely objective, they don’t do this just because they want to, but also because they are obligated to do so. They have to monitor network data to make sure that the network is operating properly. This ensures that the network isn’t being abused and is safe against online attacks.
But, the thing that’s not talked about enough is how much your ISP knows about you, and who do they share their knowledge with?
Can ISPs sell your Data Legaly?
The big question remains and that is can ISPs sell your data legally, or can they get in trouble for doing this? This can heavily vary depending on the country you’re from. For example, in the US the FCC and the Congress have issued a fair number of legislations for ISP’s which allows the two bodies to take action against internet service providers if they engage in unfair or unjust practices.
But, even with this being the case, there are no severe impediments to an internet service provider collecting your information and then using it for profit. This has lead to the problem of ISP’s offering services across the net and operating platforms where advertising can be displayed.
Of course, your ISP can’t see what you are doing when on a specific website, or your login details or similar information shared within the website. But this still means that any visit to a medical service, social app, gaming or gambling website or any other site can end up on their profile of you. When you add to this some highly personal information like your political views, your bank of choice, sexual orientation and other proclivities, the risk of some of your information leaking to third parties only grows. So, what can you do about it?
Use a VPN to Prevent ISP’s From Tracking You
Now that we know what most ISP’s can do when you go online, we’ll talk about what you can do about this issue. VPN’s are the most effective solution when you don’t want anyone monitoring your activities and snooping around your data and history. But, how do they actually work and do they hide your traffic from your ISP provider?
When connected to a virtual server, the VPN will encrypt all of your network data and traffic before sending it out to the network. This means that the VPN will mask your original address with a virtual one. So, instead of seeing plain information and unencrypted data, your ISP will only see a bunch of encrypted data which cannot be traced back to you. No one will be able to track your activities, and will also prevent your ISP from using and selling your data.
Your Privacy Matters
If there ever was a time important enough for you to care about your online privacy, it’s now. Your right to privacy is one of the fundamental rights you should defend at all costs. At ZoogVPN we have a mission to protect our user’s privacy and security by offering them the right tools for all of their online privacy needs. If you want to make an impact on your privacy in the future, it’s best to act today. Sign up for the free ZoogVPN service, or opt-in for one of our premium paid VPN services and make sure your safety and security never come into question.
- Yaroslav S.CEO at ZoogVPN. Yaroslav is a versatile manager with extensive customer support experience. His historical background and a deep passion for philosophy perfectly complete a real desire to create meaningful content and tech products.
