Using the Internet Safely For Seniors

At some point, right around the .comcrash in the late 1990s, Web

companies realized that most people weren’t really willing to pay for

services. That’s when everybody’s high-tech stocks took a dive and

many online services and sites essentially became free. Browse the Web

today and you’ll find free e-mail accounts, free news, free mortgage cal-

culators, free recipes, and on and on (see Figure 2-1).

Figure 2-1

This begs the question, how do these companies make money? Ask

most people how free online services and sites make money, and they’ll

answer in one word: advertising.

In reality, the primary way most free services tend to make money isn’t

by selling advertising space to other companies. What they sell, depend-

ing on their terms and conditions, is access to you and your information to

advertisers, marketers, researchers, and others who want your informa-

tion for a wide variety of ethical, unethical, or entirely illegal purposes.

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Part I: The Foundation of Using the Internet Safely