There are very few topics I write about which deserve a yearly check-in. Securing our online privacy is one of them. Given how quickly both technology and the global climate can change, it’s worth revisiting my research, opinions and recommendations on matters of privacy. So, let’s start at the beginning. I’ll start with the bad news, then give you the good news.

The Bad News: Online Privacy is, Essentially, Gone

The concept of privacy is a crucial bedrock of any Democracy. However, that privacy should also apply to what we do online, not just in our homes. Unfortunately, that right is now gone. If you have a high-speed data connection to the Internet in the US, it’s most likely provided by a company named AT&T, Comcast, Cox, Charter, Hughes or Verizon. Those companies know when you connect to the web, they know where you surf on the web and they know how long you spend on the web. Even so, there used to be restrictions on what those companies could do with your data.

The Good News: We Can Reclaim The Privacy We’ve Lost

However, there’s a simple, legal and affordable tool we can use to hide our data from companies like AT&T, Comcast, Cox, Charter, Hughes and Verizon. This tool ensures that those companies can’t know the websites we decide to visit. The tool is called a virtual private network or “VPN”. There is, currently, no better method I know of to help folks reclaim their online privacy.

Connecting to the internet through AT&T, Comcast, Cox, Charter, Hughes and Verizon ensures that those companies can log or monitor — if they wish — every website and IP address that we visit while we’re using their connection. However, by using a VPN service, we add a layer of protection between our ISP and the websites we visit. That prevents our ISP’s from seeing where we surf online. Instead, all they can log is that we’ve connected to our VPN service. It’s like surfing the internet using a Harry Potter invisibility cloak! Only, in this metaphor, the bad guys are the ISPs, hackers and the U.S. Government, not Malfoy and He Who Must Not Be Named.

If you need a visual to better understand, here’s a simple graphic to assist. The top half of the picture, in green, shows how using a VPN works to keep your internet data encrypted or protected from the prying eyes of our ISP; the bottom half of the picture, in red, shows how surfing the web without a VPN exposes our data to our ISP:

Remember: This is About Privacy

Some of you believe — because you’re not doing anything illegal online — that you don’t need a VPN. Bravo to you, but, respectfully, you’re missing the point. Acting illegally online isn’t the issue: the issue is having privacy online, plain and simple. Think of this real world analogy: would you be comfortable knowing that various companies kept logs with timestamps tracking exactly where you drove, exactly what you did at work, exactly where and when you banked, exactly where you shopped and with whom you spent all of your time?

No? Then you’ll want a VPN.