Many sites provide published privacy policies on the webpage itself. Before giving any information to the site, be sure to read its policy carefully and e-mail the webmaster with any questions you may have regarding usage of your personal information. Most sites have links to their privacy policies toward the bottom of the main page, or the page on which information is requested of the user. If you can't find the privacy policy of a page that requests personal information, e-mail the webmaster and ask for it specifically before submitting any personal information.

"Regardless of what your service provider's policy is with respect to 'personal' correspondence, it's important to note the many reasons why email messages can't be considered private unless they're encrypted or otherwise made unreadable to prying eyes." (Gelman, 42)

When available, use trusted third-party sites such as TRUSTe or the Online Privacy Alliance to reference the page to which you are submitting information. However, be careful when using third-party verification, and be sure to read their policy as to what "acceptable" security measures for member sites are.

Not all information is manually submitted by a site's users. Adjust your default browser settings so that cookies are not automatically accepted by your browser from websites. Internet Explorer and Netscape, the two most popular browser options, support cookies and allow them to track your mouse clicks through the internet, creating a profile of where you go, what you buy, and how you spend your time online. By disabling cookies, you prevent at least some personal information from being transmitted back to sites you have visited. For a detailed account of how to disable cookies in your browser, see JunkBuster's site on cookies.

"In addition to the possibility of intrusion by an online service's access software, new Web technologies (such as Java and ActiveX) allow for the inclusion in Web pages of miniature apoplications -- known as 'applets' -- that run on the visiting user's own machine, and these may pose a variety of security and privacy risks. The developers of these Web applications are working hard to resolve such issues, but it's not clear that total protection from these potential intruders is possible." (Gelman, 47)