Many websites make money from providing ads. Lots of sites want to increase the chance of people clicking and get affected by them, so they provide certain ads to individuals based on data (which is bought by tracking companies or collected by themselves) that has tracked their personal interests to make the ads more interesting. There are multiple methods to collect this tracking data, such as installing tracking cookies to your computer, logging your IP address (your computer's internet "address"), what site you previously visited, the browser you are using, your operating system, how long you spend time on the site, what links you click on the site, and even what other sites you visit (with the help of tracking cookies). All of this occurs automatically when visiting sites doing this data mining, without you noticing. Popular search engines, including Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Yandex, store your search queries along with your IP address (and account if you are logged in) associated with them. These are compiled and analyzed to more accurately target ads and provide relevant search results. If your computer is logged into any social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), these networks will be able to track your browsing history directly associated with your social network information if the websites you visit have social network plugins ("Like" buttons, Retweet buttons, etc.). This is most commonly used to determine if customers are using the network to download torrents of copyrighted materials. No matter how much you cover your tracks, there is always some information that can potentially be used to profile and potentially identify you. The goal of using anonymity tools is to reduce the amount of information available, but due to the nature of the internet, you cannot ever be truly anonymous. When browsing online, you have to make the choice between convenience and anonymity. It's not exactly easy to stay anonymous online, and requires a significant amount of conscious effort. You'll face much slower connections when browsing websites, and you'll have to jump through more hoops before you even go online. If your anonymity is important to you, be prepared to make some sacrifices. The next section will cover how to keep your personal information from being tied to your IP address, but does not guarantee anonymity. To increase your anonymity online, see the two sections at the end of this article.
تتعقب المواقع الالكترونية الزائرين من أجل استخدام بياناتهم في الإعلانات والتواصل معهم من خلال وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي. تقوم محركات البحث الرئيسية بتخزين سجل عمليات البحث التي قمت بها والربط بينها وبين عنوان IP الخاص بك (وحسابك إن كنت سجلت الدخول إلى هذه الخدمات). تتعقب شبكات التواصل الاجتماعي مكان تواجدك. يمكن لمزود خدمات الانترنت الخاص بك تحليل حركة الزيارات عبر الشبكة لمعرفة ما تقوم به عبر الانترنت. لا يمكن إخفاء الهوية تمامًا عبر الانترنت. عند تصفح الانترنت، أمامك اختيار بين استخدام الانترنت بشكل كامل أو عدم الكشف عن الهوية.