The Most Important Privacy Settings to Change on Reddit
Ever since the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica bomb happened , we all think about online privacy. But Facebook isn’t the only one tracking you. Countless companies, from other tech giants to credit cards to reward most stores , have adopted similar tactics – even your favorite (or hated) forum site, Reddit.
While Reddit doesn’t make it easy to view banner ads and promoted posts – unless you buy gold or install a third-party browser extension – you can still limit what the site knows about you (and shares with its advertisers). To get started, head over to the Personalization Settings page on Reddit.
When we opened this page in a new account, all of its options were set to On by default. We unchecked all the boxes because Reddit is pretty rude that we want this all to happen in the background, right?
The personalization page also notes that these settings will not apply to ads served by other companies on Reddit. (Is this confusing? We think so too.) In its privacy policy, Reddit points to the Digital Advertising Alliance and the Networking Advertising Initiative as two sites you can visit to opt out of additional personalized ads – the next two stops on our list …
While you should enable the Do Not Track option (if any) in your browser for added privacy while browsing, Reddit’s privacy policy notes that the company ignores this setting. Ouch.
Limiting Reddit’s tracking won’t stop its ads – you’ll need a browser extension (or two) for that, and the ads you see will be less relevant to your interests. However, depending on what you are viewing on Reddit, this might be fine. (And you can always create a dummy account, or two, or multiple, or just not log in at all if you want Reddit’s ad unit to be harder to track what you do and share that information with whoever. . to want.)