There are several ways a college student can protect his or her online privacy. College students today accept terms of agreement without reading them and even save passwords onto their computer and phone without thinking about what would happen if they got stolen. Students not only don’t know how to protect their computers, they are also oblivious to the fact that their computers are being monitored on the web. Very few students know that photos will always stay on the web. A simple google search of someone can reveal several of their most “private” Facebook photos. In a prank video on YouTube, a person used the Instagram photo locator to find random people who had just posted Instagram photos in his general location. If a normal prankster can track a person that easily, who knows what a government agency could do?

One of the best ways to protect oneself from the number one threat of the five biggest privacy threats of 2013 is to simply download a browser add on. There are multiple browser add ons that one can choose from. Collusion or DoNotTrackMe can be used to either track which companies are following you or prevent companies from following your browsing in general. But even then, DoNotTrackMe only stops so many cookies from following your browsing. There is only so much you can do to keep your browsing private, but even then it is still not completely private. The safest thing you can do as a college student is be careful what information you put online, especially through social media. Think before posting because “deleting” something on the internet rarely actually means deleting it.