Industrial News

When seeking the services of a contractor or other home improvement professional, it is important to get estimates from several different companies. This can mean your name, phone number, and maybe even your address is willingly given to 3 or more companies who may now send you junk mail or share your personal information for years to come.

A new system, launched on February 19, 2005, allows people in search of a contractor or other service provider to get competing offers and maintain their privacy if they choose. The individual seeking services can communicate with service providers using message board technology, designed by HomePyramid.com, without releasing any personally identifiable information such as name, phone number, or email address. By using HomePyramid.com's patent pending system, one can get several offers from local companies for any type of project and rest assured that he or she will not receive unwanted solicitations as a by-product of using the service. Please visit http://www.homepyramid.com to learn more.

Ten tips to help safeguard your privacy on the internet:

1. Read the privacy policy of all websites you visit. Pay special attention to the parts that discuss how the company intends to use the information you provide. Do not use a website that does not have a privacy policy.

2. Find out if the website has partners or affiliates and learn about their privacy policies as well. Find out if the website shares information with the partners and if you can opt-out of receiving emails with special offers or marketing messages from third parties.

3. If it seems like a company is asking for too much information, they probably are. Don't give out your bank information, social security number, etc. If you are supplying credit card numbers, read the privacy policy to learn how the information is used and make sure the website uses encryption.

4. Be careful what you download. Some applications come with "spyware" that is meant to spy on your internet habits and report information back to whomever you downloaded from. Find a program that can detect and remove spyware from your computer.

5. Disable cookies in your web browser and only enable them for sites that require them or sites that you know you can trust. Cookies are little pieces of information stored on your computer by the websites you visit. Some are useful and necessary to make a website work correctly, others attempt to collect information about you and track your surfing habits.

6. When creating a password, use a combination of numbers and letters, preferably words that you cannot find in the dictionary. Change your password occasionally and/or if you think someone may have discovered it.

7. Get a secondary email account that you can use when signing up for online services or the like. This way if you start receiving spam, your primary address will not get bombarded.

8. When using a public computer, always close the browser before leaving. You may even want to empty the cache, found in the tools folder in your browser.

9. If you are going to be sending sensitive information over the internet such as credit card information, check that the page is secure. Look for "https://" in your browser instead of just "http://".

10. Realize that there are always risks on the internet. There is no such thing as perfect security online, but by taking the proper precautions you can help protect your privacy and avoid identity theft.