Do you ever worry about your real life privacy and identity being compromised, by what you do on line?

Myself, I do NO on line banking still prefer to go to the bank and do it there.
I will not use my real visa for any online purchases, either prepaid visa, or paypal,and my paypal account has been targeted at times,just about ready to let it go.

Don’t do Facebook.
Or Twitter.
Or snap chat, or anything else of that nature.

No concerns here. I do all of my banking and bills, and most of my shopping online. Of course, I monitor all of my charges online each day and would be able to see if there was any strange transactions.

Note: Not to make you nervous, but many of the large data thefts have come via hacks into computer systems that were able to steal credit card info from brick and mortar stores, such as grocery stores and department stores. Additionally, there are 3rd-party data warehouses that purchase your data. And these are sometimes breached. And of course, there is Equifax.

In other words, if you decide to not do online banking or make online purchases, that’s fine. But I don’t think this is keeping your privacy and identity safe.

I have heard of brick and mortar stores being hacked as well, I keep credit card purchases to a minimum, it was compromised at a hotel a while back and visa caught it right away, thank goodness.

@SQUEEKY2, you may not Bank online, but your bank banks online, so your information is no less vulnerable by brick and mortar banking than by mindful online banking.

That may be true but I will still stick to just going to the bank,if it’s their mistake they have to make up for it, mine I would have to eat it.

I like patronizing real brick and mortar businesses ,and interacting with real people,and if I have a problem with an item I can take it back ,not send it back wait for who knows how long for the item to be replaced or fixed.

I only use my credit card for online purchases. My credit card company allows me to generate a one time CC number for purchases. A pain for sure but I barely buy anything online.

No email, banking, amazon, or anything sensitive on the phone. On my home computer I turn on a VPN (I control) to do sensitive stuff. And I don’t use Windows.

I like the human contact of brick and mortar stores but many of them are closing.. I also like the convenience of shopping online. I love the tellers in my bank and am in there almost weekly to withdraw money but I pay my bills online. The only fraud I’ve had was someone got my Macy’s credit card which is not online and used it to buy many bottles of perfume in stores i don’t frequent. When I noticed this, I called and the charges were taken off.

I believe in taking reasonable precautions and then dealing with problems if they arrive.

Yup.

I have used banks & credit unions for maybe 20 years without a problem. I was an early adopter.

I have given up worrying about retailers tracking me.

I don’t use Facebook.

I don’t worry about it, I have Lifelock. And I pay bills online and as an elected official I can assure you, we’re all watched all the time. You pass seven cameras just to get to my house. Companies monitor your sites and typing. Any privacy outside the deep woods and all cash, is only an illusion.

No. I don’t let that much info out.

From my observation, people who have their accounts hacked do stupid things like clicking on spam links or typing their credit numbers to malicious websites. Those things can be avoided easily by common sense. You don’t seem like someone who has too much “sensitive” business on the internet like @johnpowell, so using your common sense will be enough.

That said, I prefer brick stores too. It just feel easier and safer to hand in your cash right at the counter.

I should probably think about it more. I use Yahoo as my startup page and was concerned to learn about the problems they had with passwords. I have bought things online using my credit cared information.

I was surprised to learn that Web sites make more money from selling user data than from advertising. There is something about this that just seems wrong, but I can’t say exactly what. Maybe we should be paid when our information is shared.

I didn’t answer your Q, @SQUEEKY2, sorry.
I don’t worry, really, but I am mildly cautious. There are so many ways to track us (that don’t include our personal Internet usage) that I am somewhat fatalistic about the idea of privacy in this day and age.
I still do most of my transactions in person, but that’s because I like interacting with people.

@LostInParadise Would you be willing to pay a subscription fee and not have your data sold? That is the logical solution.

What is wrong with being paid for the use of your data? It has been suggested that when robots eliminate all of our jobs, that might be how we could earn a living.

I’m not starting an argument. I’m asking a question and positing a solution. Perhaps even a opt-out where you can use a site for free and they sell your data or you pay a subscription fee and control its use.

Last night I was thinking that if the FBI looked at some of our Google searches that we’ve done, to research Q’s here on Fluther, they might suspect that some of us are into child pornography, sado-masochism, or that we are very depressed, have anorexia, are contemplating suicide, and have gender dysmorphia, while eating large quantities of snacks.