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Maintaining our privacy in this information age continues to be a challenge. It seems that most everything we do leaves a data trail for some intelligence-seeking hunter to follow. Advertising agencies and their ilk spend fortunes trying to discover who we are, what we like and what we'll buy. And a lot of this private information is coming from the Internet. The Internet has become the information resource of the new millennium but it's a two way street. When we surf the Net, we leave little trails of where we've been, how long we were there and what we did while we were there. This tracking is inherent in the design of the browsers and email programs we use to access the Internet. Things such as Java applets, ActiveX, cookies, email and more all leave trails. But you can fight back and become truly anonymous on the Internet with the help of sites such as Anonymizer.com.

Anonymizer.com is a web site. There's nothing to download, no software to run. You simply log onto Anonymizer.com, surf and send email from their location. That's it. All Anonymizer.com basically does is act as an information shield. Normally, when you arrive at a web site, your browser reveals to that site where you came from and where you are going to when you decide to leave. Using Anonymizer.com prevents all of that from happening because you always arrive and leave from Anonymizer.com's protected location. To access a web site, for example, you simply type in the address from Anonymizer.com's screen which takes you to that site after they strip off any identification tags that would normally be associated to you and your location. You arrive anonymously and leave the same way. You can also save your bookmarks with the Anonymizer.com prefix to make those frequently visited sites an easier task.

Email is handled in much the same manner. You first go to Anonymizer.com, compose, address and send an email using their screens. Your email arrives to any location with total anonymity. None of the identification information can be seen from within the email message nor on any of the routing tags. Anonymizer.com works so well that many of its users are government and Intelligence agencies according to the company's president, Lance Cottrell. So what happens if Anonymizer.com is subpoenaed to reveal the source of an email placed through its service? According to Cottrell, there is no information to be subpoenaed. Anonymizer.com keeps no records because, according to Cottrell, "...it's too easy to get our courts to issue a subpoena these days."

User's of Anonymizer.com can be assured that there is no way to track anything placed through their service. So what if their site is used for illegal purposes, say by some terrorist agency or used by kidnappers to deliver a ransom message? Cottrell says it's like anything else that can be used for good or bad. It's possible for Anonymizer.com to be used in a nefarious manner although so far, nothing bad has yet to be reported. But if it's all anonymous, how would Cottrell know? Because all email sent through his service is tagged as coming from Anonymizer.com. The company wouldn't know who sent it, only that it was sent from Anonymizer.com.

Another positive reason to use this service is the reduction of junk email better known as "spam." When visiting a commercial site, many will attempt to place you on a mailing list. Arriving anonymously prevents your landing on a spammer's list. An additional eye opener is clicking on their "Who are you?" page. Everything such as your computer's name, where you have been and other tidbits are immediately revealed just to show how much information they can get about you from just one simple visit!

Bottom line is that where you go and what sites you visit is your business. According to Cottrell, it's not too much of a stretch to envision a day where your insurance company may get wind that you've been visiting web sites that offer information about Cancer and deny you health insurance coverage based upon those inquiries and the possibility that you may be hiding a pre-existing condition. So be safe, Surf anonymously. Anonymizer.com is a free service. A premium service with additional features such as URL scrambling costs $5 a month.

www.anonymizer.com