Washington - As you may have heard, Congress recently
voted to repeal Internet privacy protections that otherwise would have gone
into effect later this year. The move effectively permits Internet providers
such as Verizon and AT&T to mine and sell your browsing history, location
information, and in some cases even the content of your communications, similar
to what Google and Facebook do now.
Even when it is not tied directly to a name, certain
types of data can shed light on a person's medical history, financial details,
even their sexual preferences. Even the type of porn sites a person visits can
be revealing.
In an announcement Thursday, the website Pornhub - which
claims to get 75 million visitors per day - said it has adopted HTTPS, a
security measure that adds encryption to a site to guard visitors against
snooping and attack. Its sister site, YouPorn, will also be adding HTTPS on
April 4, according to parent company MindGeek.
"With the switch to HTTPS, we are able to protect
identity as well as safeguard them against exposure to malware by third
parties," said Corey Price, a vice president at Pornhub. The move by
Pornhub has been months in the making.
Here's what that means in practice. Visitors to these
sites should see a green padlock icon in their browser's URL bar, a sign they
are viewing the secured version of the site. Privacy experts say HTTPS helps
prevent third parties - such as your Internet provider - from seeing more
detailed information. While HTTPS doesn't prevent an Internet provider from
recording a visit to a site like Pornhub, in practice it keeps providers from
knowing what specific videos visitors may have watched, category links they may
have clicked on, or searches they may have made on the site.
Read also: China cracks down on online porn
"If you go to an HTTPS website with a little lock,
the arc of visibility of an ISP is much diminished," said Chris Calabrese,
a policy exec at the Centre for Democracy and Technology.
Sites without HTTPS support - pornographic or otherwise -
don't provide these protections.
Internet users can force their browsers to view the
secure version of any site (if there is one) with certain software extensions.
On the heels of the congressional vote, some Americans
are wondering again how to shield their online activity from outside view.
Although many sites still lack support for HTTPS, more are opting to do so -
including The Washington Post. For a list of sites that are HTTPS-compatible,
check out this list from Google.