# Privacy Footprint
##### November 5, 2019

From a young age, my mother always warned my sisters and I about internet privacy. I was allowed to have a Facebook account when I was 11 (the only social media form really at the time.) From then, I have always tried to practice online privacy, but what is truly out there that not even I can control?

## My Identity
When I first did a Google search of my name, the first thing that came up was an obituary, which was obviously not mine. The next link was to LinkedIn and all the Elizabeth Lonergans, but I was not within the top 20 results. When I image searched my name, I was the sixith photo to appear, and it was my Twitter profile picture. My current twitter account is my only public social media site because I have to use it for another class, but I was suprised it was so high on the search results. When I dug a little deeper, I found an old sailing video of myself. While watching it, and laughing, I saw under related images articles linking to both my sister and mother, which I found peculiar. For their own privacy, I did not take a screenshot.



When doing an Intelius search, the results came up with an incorrect middle inital and phone number, but did have my family and place of employment correct.


## Browser

When looking to see what my browser, I was pleased that they could not pin my location. They could see what type of computer what was on, and what social media I was logged into. Other than that, there was not much on my browser.


## Google

#### Google Privacy
For my Google privacy settings, I ended up taking a privacy check and turning my location tracking off for my email account, which I was suprised was turned on. Other than my location, my browsing history and youtube history was already set to private.


#### Search Activity
For my search activity, I checked the bundles and found that it was tracking all the ads I have clicked on today, and "bundled" my top activity today including: food, my favorite blogger, and my Google slides activity for a group project.



#### Timeline in Google Maps

Since I do not use Google Maps on my phone, I was not surprised they did not have any location information about my where abouts.

#### Google Ad Preferences

My ad preferences are turned on, which I do not mind because the ads I see are geared towards clothing, health, and beauty products that I might not have known about if I had not seen the ads. Looking at my preferences, some were from websites I had visited today, but others were from websites I had never visited. Even though I had never visited some of these websites, they are popular shopping sites for women my age, so it makes sense I would see those ads.



#### Social Networks
For this exercise, I looked through my Facebook profile. I have not changed my settings since I first created my page in 2010. Then, my settings were set so no-one had any information about me. Today, the public can see where I go to school, where I live, and my profile pictures.After reading the Telegraph article, I looked to see if Facebook had my number, and it indeed did have it. I believe it has my number because of its messaging app, which I use to communicate with friends around the globe. 

Overall, I am not surpised about my internet footprint. I try to be concious about what I share online. The most knowledge anyone has about me are my ad preferences on Google. I understand this gives a lot of data about myself, but I am not that concerned about those preferences. I believe because I actively try to keep my privacy settings on, I do not feel that violated online.