Archives - Privacy Settings


Change your privacy settings on Spotify

Like many other account-based services, Spotify collects information about its listeners. It only collects relevant information, but if you want to have as much privacy as possible, you can update your privacy settings. For users of the free service, you can opt out of ads that are tailored to your preferences (users of the paid […]

Limit who can see your journeys on Strava

Strava is a fitness app that tracks users’ runs or bike rides, with a social media twist. Users can connect with their friends through the app to see other athletes’ bike or run paths. Unless your privacy settings are updated to your liking, it’s possible that anyone can see where you are running or biking. […]

Personalize your YouTube ads

If your family shares a computer and you want to be able to control the types of ads your children or other family members see, you can personalize your ads in your YouTube settings. Otherwise, YouTube will try to show you targeted ads based on the data they collect about you and your family. To […]

Cancel microphone access for apps you aren’t using

Have you ever questioned if someone was secretly eavesdropping on your conversations? Many mobile apps, including hundreds of popular games, do exactly that, by scanning for ambient audio cues to better target their advertisements. For your own privacy, think about restricting microphone access for such applications unless you’re actively using it in them.

Try Paranoid for your smart speakers

If you don’t want your smart speaker hearing your conversations, but you don’t want the hassle of consistently muting and unmuting it or using a voice remote, you can try Paranoid. Paranoid is a device that sits on the mute button of the smart speaker and only turns it off when it hears the wake […]

Check privacy policies and uncheck boxes

Check the privacy policy before you submit your email address to a website. See if it allows the company to sell your email to others. You might decide not to submit your email address to websites that won’t protect it. When submitting your email address to a website, look for pre-checked boxes that sign you […]