Today, we can hold the sum of the knowledge of the human race in our pockets, and we can access it for free–you don’t have to pay to use Google or Instagram. So how do these companies make money? Ads. This might seem like just a minor inconvenience, but to find the right ads, all the major tech companies implement trackers to monitor your every online move, every word you search, every ad you react to, every website you visit, and sometimes even where you go in the real world. In this world of constant tracking, how can you retain your privacy?

One great way is to use browsers and search engines that limit online tracking. Opera and Brave Browser are two good free options that have built-in ad and tracker blockers. Tens of millions of websites have been paid by tech giants to add little snippets of code to their websites. These are important. All across the internet, they silently take notes on your activity and make a profile of you. Then, they classify you in to a group for marketing. For example: affluent Latino males interested in fitness and music. Advertisers will then pay for this information and show ads based on your interests. However, tracker blockers prevent anyone from collecting data on you, and ad blockers block the ads, albeit non-targeted ads, that you are shown. However, there’s more you can do. By using non-tracking search engines like DuckDuckGo, you can prevent Google from tracking what you search. A combination of non-tracking browsers and search engines allows you to take back your online privacy.

Another way to protect your online privacy is to limit what social media accounts you have and what you post. Even seemingly inconsequential things, like where you ate last night, can be used to develop a picture of you, and that’s not even mentioning the risks of sharing your personal life for complete strangers to see. Most social media networks, Facebook, in particular, have had many questions and concerns raised about user privacy. The full extent of the data that Facebook collects is still unknown, and it is equally uncertain for most other social media platforms. However, by avoiding posting too much about your life, you can prevent an advertising classification from being made.

Although these measures can certainly go a long way to protect your online privacy, we will be tracked by advertisers–one way or another. Instead of paying to access websites, we have decided to give up our privacy for free internet. But how much would we have to pay? How much is my online presence worth? How much are my ambitions, my talents, my dreams, my hopes, my past, my personality worth to the tech companies? On average, $12.