Six Tips to Protect Your Search Privacy

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Google, MSN Search, Yahoo!, AOL, and most other search engines collect and store records of your search queries. If these records are revealed to others, they can be embarrassing or even cause great harm. Would you want strangers to see searches that reference your online reading habits, medical history, finances, sexual orientation, or political affiliation?

1. Don't put personally identifying information in your search terms (easy)
Don't search for your name, address, credit card number, social security number, or other personal information. These kinds of searches can create a roadmap that leads right to your doorstep. They could also expose you to identity theft and other privacy invasions.

2. Don't use your ISP's search engine (easy)
Because your ISP knows who you are, it will be able to link your identity to your searches. It will also be able to link all your individual search queries into a single search history. So, if you are a Comcast broadband subscriber, for instance, you should avoid using http://search.comcast.net. Similarly, if you're an AOL member, do not use http://search.aol.com or the search box in AOL's client software.

3. Don't login to your search engine or related tools (intermediate)
Search engines sometimes give you the opportunity to create a personal account and login. In addition, many engines are affiliated with other services -- Google with Gmail and Google Chat; MSN with Hotmail and MSN Messenger; A9 with Amazon, and so on. When you log into the search engine or one of those other services, your searches can be linked to each other and to your personal account.
So, if you have accounts with services like Google GMail or Hotmail, do not search through the corresponding search engine (Google or MSN Search, respectively), especially not while logged in.

4. Block "cookies" from your search engine (intermediate)
If you've gone through the steps above, your search history should no longer have personally identifying information all over it. However, your search engine can still link your searches together using cookies and IP addresses.
Cookies are small chunks of information that websites can put on your computer when you visit them. Among other things, cookies enable websites to link all of your visits and activities at the site. Since cookies are stored on your computer, they can let sites track you even when you are using different Internet connections in different locations. But when you use a different computer, your cookies don't come with you.

5. Vary your IP address (intermediate)
When you connect to the Internet, your ISP assigns your computer an "IP address" (for instance, EFF's web server's IP address is 72.5.169.162). Search providers -- and other services you interact with online -- can see your IP address and use that number to link together all of your searches. IP addresses are particularly sensitive because they can be directly linked to your ISP account via your ISP's logs. Unlike cookies, your IP address does not follow your computer wherever it goes; for instance, if you use your laptop at work through AT&T, it will have a different IP address than when you use it at home through Comcast.
If your ISP gives you a changing, "dynamic" IP address,13 or you surf from an office computer that is behind the same firewall as lots of other computers, then this concern is diminished. However, if you have a dynamic IP address on a broadband connection, you will need to turn your modem off regularly to make the address change. The best way to do this is to turn your modem off when you finish with your computer for the day, and leave it off overnight.
On the other hand, if you have an unchanging, "static" IP address, you will certainly need to use anonymizing software to keep your address private

6. Use web proxies and anonymizing software like Tor (advanced)
To hide your IP address from the web sites you visit or the other computers you communicate with on the Internet, you can use other computers as proxies for your own -- you send your communication to the proxy; the proxy sends it to the intended recipient; and the intended recipient responds to the proxy. Finally, the proxy relays the response back to your computer. All of this sounds complicated, and it can be, but luckily there are tools available that can do this for you fairly seamlessly.