Google pretty much knows everything you do and everywhere you go. Don't think so? Go to your Activity page in your Google account and see what information they are keeping on you. They know every web page you visit and the date and time you visited it. They know all your text messages, if you have an Android device. They know everything you said to Go Google or Google Now. Scary, isn't it? But you can do something about it...at least, for now.

You can still use Google products, but just don't let them use you to make money for their ads. The instructions on how to do this can be found on the below page, below the video. 

http://cyberguy.com/how-to/how-to-delete-everything-from-your-google-searches/

Here are the steps to take:

How to Delete everything you’ve ever searched on Google
​1. Login to your Google account.
2. Locate your initials (or image if you uploaded one) inside the circle in upper corner. To the left of this, click on the small grid of 9 squares: 

• This will open up a menu.
• Click “Account”

3. Scroll down the page and select My Activity.
4. Review everything you’ve searched for and visited.
Now that you’re on the My Activity page, Select the three line menu at top left of screen (this menu may already be open depending on what device you’re on)

5. Tap “Delete activity by”
6. Under ‘Delete by date‘ select All Time
7. Just below in the “All products” dropdown menu, tap Search
8. Select Delete, OK, then Delete again.
Be very careful to examine everything you will be deleting. Once it’s done. It is done.
Now you are in control of your Google experiences.

More info on these links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?

https://www.androidauthority.com/delete-google-history-692726/

143 Million Americans, and some British and Canadian consumers had their information hacked through Equifax on July 29. But Equifax did not disclose the attack publicly until September 7. They claimed they engaged an independent cybersecurity firm to conduct forensic studies to provide recommendations to tighten security.
 
Equifax is one of the three major credit monitoring and reporting agencies. Equifax has information on more than 820 million consumers and more than 91 million businesses worldwide. They also have records holding employee data from more than 7,100 employers. 

BEWARE: Emails may start coming to your email inbox purporting to be from Equifax, or maybe even your bank. There is sure to be phishing attempts to get you to further divulge your information. Be very careful about clicking on any links that are contained within these messages. Best action: Go to the actual website but DO NOT CLICK ON LINKS in random emails. They may look like they are coming from the actual sender but may be a “GOTCHA” trick.

Keep in mind that once your personal data has been compromised by any kind of hack, that information is floating around forever. So what can you do?

Bob Rankin, one of the club’s “Go To” resources for the latest technology revelations, has an article with a lot of really good information. PLEASE READ: 

https://askbobrankin.com/equifax_takes_the_data_breach_cake.html

More information here: 
https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/equifax-data-breach.html

and here:
https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-protect-yourself-from-that-massive-equifax-breach/

​Email spoofing is forgery of an email address so that the message appears to have originated from someone you may know but is actually from someone other than the actual email address owner. This phishing attempt is a tactic used in phishing and spam campaigns because people are more likely to open an email when they think it has been sent by someone they know and trust. The goal of email spoofing is to get you to open, and possibly even respond to, a request for money or information in the message.
 
Bob Bloom has prepared a short presentation to demonstrate.

​CLICK HERE to view.

For those interested and involved in genealogy research, you may want to be aware of a really creepy site that divulges all of your personal data as well as that of your family and loved ones.  The website is www.familytreenow.com/

But what makes it so creepy is that Family Tree Now provides all of your public information in one place, totally free, without a login or any other info. This makes it just too easy for anyone to gain information about you and your family. It even discloses “possible past associations”. The fact that this site will give anyone your current address, age, relatives, and other info immediately gives anyone all the info they might need to locate, even contact, you. Creepy!

Check these articles out and read carefully. Then try to opt out.

Fortune gives details at: http://fortune.com/2017/01/13/family-tree-now/

Money explains how to remove your info from the site:
http://time.com/money/4634434/family-tree-now-opt-out-protect-yourself/

​If you are using the Wot add-on in your browser, you will see that all links to this site are RED meaning that the site is not trustworthy.