First let’s talk about that what is ,,ISP”. This is your internet service provider. The ISP is the company that provides internet access to companies, families and even mobile users. For example some of the most popular internet providers are AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast. The internet providers are the owners of your network.
So the question is can my ISP have certain access to my data and traffic I exchange with networks and websites? Unfortunately the answer is yes. But what did they do with the information. Everyday your information, browsing history and everything is given to the government. The idea of this is to catch illegal deals and sales online. That’s why if you order drugs or weapons online, the FBI is more likely to knock on the door than the supplier of the drugs, weapons or whatever. Because they will see the site for illegal wares that you have visited before. As a result many crimes are prevented this way. So this is the good side of giving information.
The bad thing is that this information is not only given to the government. Your information is also sold to companies and sites. Most often it’s given for advertising purposes. Many internet providers work with advertising companies and sell your information to them. Most often they sell your browsing history and your most visited sites. That’s why you get ads according your interests. Also most of the ISPs keep your information for about two years.
The worst thing that your ISP can do with your information is to sell it on the black market. So can everyone go to an internet provider and buy a person’s browsing history and everything? In theory, this is not impossible, but probably not in reality. Many ISPs have privacy policies that say if your provider share or sell individual’s personal information in violation of its own privacy policy the company can be convicted. But not every company uses this privacy policy. In most cases, these are networks that have malicious purposes. These networks are not secured with password and everybody can connect to them. These networks steal people’s information and much more because when you connect to some network the owner can see your IP address and exploit yourself. That’s why you don’t have to connect to unsecured networks if you don’t know them. So it is unlikely that your ISP will sell your information to nefarious partners but advertising companies may have your information.
So your ISP knows your vacation plans, your interests and more but is there a way to hide this information. Well if the site is encrypted your ISP can see the domain of the site but can’t see the specifics. That means they can see that you visited Facebook yesterday at 3 p.m. but won’t have access to the encrypted data like your login credentials, who you talked to and what you said. But if you are visiting unencrypted sites or sending and receiving unencrypted communications the ISP will be able to see the specifics. Including the exact content on the web pages and messages. So they can get a pretty good picture of what your online life is. Because they can piece together messages like recipient of your message or how long is your password and many more.
The beginning of an encrypted site looks like this HTTPS – ,,Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure” and unencrypted site starts with HTTP – ,,Hypertext Transfer Protocol”. If you want your internet provider to see nothing of your activity online just enter ,,incognito mode”. Just joking you can’t hide your activity from your ISP entering incognito mode or deleting your browsing history.
