The two primary ways to hide your IP address are using a proxy server or using a virtual private network (VPN). This is a major problem, as half of the people on the internet in the US only have one choice of ISP, so for many, it’s either be spied on or go without internet. While they all claim they don’t sell customer data, it is certainly worth a lot of money to ad companies, and there is nothing legally stopping them. Under US law, your Internet Service Provider (Comcast, Verizon, etc.) has the right to collect information about you without your permission, just like any website owner does. The spying and selling of user data aren’t limited to websites either. Anyone with your IP address can do this, and while it won’t give out your actual home address or name to everyone, anyone with access to your ISPs customer data can find you fairly easily. Here I’ve done a basic IP lookup, which returned my location down to the area of the city in which I live. Your IP address can also be used to track your location, even when your location services are turned off.

This is why ads on the internet sometimes feel oddly personal: it’s because they are. They then sell this data to advertising companies who use it to tailor ads straight to you. Whenever you access a website, the server you connect to logs your IP address and attaches it to all the other data the site can learn about you: your browsing habits, what you click on, how long you spend looking at a particular page. The other reason to hide your IP address is simply for more privacy and to prevent misuse of your personal information. For example, this happens a lot on YouTube, where some countries, like Germany, block copyrighted content outright, rather than using YouTube’s monetization model.

Private companies also often geo-lock their content, making it unavailable in certain countries. If you can hide your real IP address and make it look like you’re browsing from another region, you can get around these restrictions and view blocked websites. Some content is blocked by the government in certain areas, such as in China and the Middle East. One reason is geographic restrictions and censorship. But there are a lot of other reasons you might want to hide it. One of the big reasons that people hide their IP addresses is so that they can download illegal material without being tracked. Why Would You Need To Hide Your IP Address?

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