Digital privacy is no longer a concern that’s reserved for the tech-savvy. The average internet user (ahem, billions of people globally) is online in some form every single day.
Pew Research findings suggest that people in the United States are increasingly worried about ways in which the government, social media platforms and other sites are collecting ― and in some cases ― selling consumer data. That said, there are digital privacy resources that everyone can benefit from utilizing, and one of those practical resources is a virtual private network, aka a VPN.
Experts explained to HuffPost how VPN services work, and why investing in a VPN service can help protect your digital privacy.
What is a VPN and how does it work?
“A VPN prevents your internet service provider [ISP] ― whether that’s your home cable service, your employer’s network, your school’s internet service, or the airport or cafe WiFi ― from seeing what sites you are visiting online,” Nick Doty, a senior technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology, told HuffPost, adding that “it can prevent the sites you visit from knowing exactly where you’re visiting from.”
