Google provides tools for controlling your personal information, and a handy dashboard for your various accounts. Use the privacy tools page (google.com/policies/privacy/tools/) to opt out of tracking.
The dashboard shows your use of most Google services, even if the accounts are under different names. You can edit or remove some information, but the ultimate sanction is to go to account settings (google.com/settings/) and delete everything. At least delete your Web browsing history (google.com/history/).
Block tracking
While Google’s “opt out” cookies are useful, there are independent browser plug-ins that aim to block wider attempts to track you. Abine’s Do Not Track Plus (abine.com) is a leading free example. Alternatives include Ghostery and TrackerBlock.
Private browsing
Many Web browsers now include a “private browsing” feature — InPrivate Browsing in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Incognito in Google’s Chrome, and Private Browsing in Firefox and Apple’s Safari — to protect your browsing habits from other family members, but they also help protect your privacy online.
Restrict your use of Gmail, Facebook and similar sites to private browser windows — other sites will find it harder to track the connection.
Anonymous browsing sites
Web sites identify the IP (internet protocol) address you use to access the Web. So, instead of going directly to a Web site, go via one or more intermediate Web sites, or proxies, so it can’t see where you started. Various “anonymous proxy” Web sites — some free, some commercial — make this simple. Examples include hidemyass.com, anonymouse.org, Proxify and Megaproxy.
The most comprehensive anonymous browsing service is the peer-to-peer Tor network. However, free proxy services tend to be slow, will not access certain sites, will not download large files, and have other measures to prevent abuse.
Don’t give away information
Your personal information is valuable, so try to avoid giving too much away. Instead of using mainly Google sites (Gmail, Blogger, YouTube, Picasa, etc) use different sites such as DuckDuckGo for search, Hotmail for e-mail, Flickr for photos and so on, preferably using different names.
When you provide accurate data, eg, on Facebook and LinkedIn, don’t provide unnecessary detail, and use the privacy controls to limit access.
If you can avoid social networks altogether, that should also increase your privacy.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby