online – Vivishine

And the bubble has burst Again Fool! You fool! thought The battle of coronavirus, COVID-19 was over, with those Vaccines in your hat? But, let me remind It's not over yet Second wave or Tsunami Whatever you may call it Held in a big mess The world You and me And Everybody else Broke rules, some of our own Few of theirs So unwillingly but needily Introduced to Unusual isolated bitter shifts Of routine To be available Only online All the time Not an easy escape Working in frontline Indeed proved to be Lifeline Serving over time Loads and loads Men and women Many congratulations You have witnessed And survived Epidemic turned pandemic Through prolonging Tough times A little impatience, Casualness Among the masses Rises the spread Beyond control Lockdown, curfew Temporary buyback For time However bored, Burned out The desires unrest Along boundless zest With your each breathe Sanitize Mask Up Socially maintain distance Hold on, For yourself For the sake of Near and dear ones Please hold on It's a kind request Let's give it a tough fight _***Composed by Vinit Desai _***

What is digital footprint?

So, you are an active internet user. You have atleast one social media account and in some point of time have uploaded a photo, shared a video, have liked/commented on friend’s post. Also, the likes on a post, private chat messages, the online shopping search of your favourite brand etc. Aren’t these the activities we, as individual’s tend to do to be connected and engaged or in search of something online? In simple terms, all this content builds up what is called as digital footprint.

That means, digital footprint also referred as digital shadow is a content (text or audio or video) with a set of traceable digital activities of an individual on the digital devices or any internet platform. That is, the stuff what you leave behind when you use online services for online shopping, social networking etc.

Why should you be concerned about digital footprint?

Once you are logged into any website be it for online shopping or listening to a trending song, remember that web is secretly tracking all your actions allowing the targeted marketers to advertise exactly what products you have been browsing in you recent past. Also social media platforms often introduce new policies of usage that we may tend to accept just by clicking Accept/Ok button without actually reading the policies. User privacy is a concern.

All this data can be leaked to make a profit out of it for research in terms of marketing products and building it better for human convenience where a set of customers habits and user experience can be traced.

Can we avoid not being eavesdropped?

As suggested by one of my friend you may say as well, if privacy is a concern browse without login into websites, use browser’s incognito mode, clear browser history. That doesn’t solve the problem at base level as there is this loophole: every device has a unique IP address and uniquely the browsed content can be easily traced.