Back in 2002 The Wall Street Journal ran a provocative piece: “If TiVo Thinks You Are Gay, Here’s How to Set It Straight.” The clever title aside it was an interesting look at the way advertisers use the information we voluntarily provide.

Today TiVo may be as fashionable as carbon paper but the premise remains true. Our lives are increasingly moving online and in doing so we provide lots of information about ourselves whether we know it or not. (It’s called the “Terms of Services” agreement – the nonsense we don’t read yet to which we so casually click “I Agree” much in the same way most of us treat a mutual fund prospectus.)

Ironically the good folks at “Do No Evil” Google are the biggest violators of their own motto. So how do we stop Larry and Sergey from exploiting us? Unless we avoid using their ubiquitous Gmail, Search, Maps, etc. we can’t. We can, however, find out what they know about us (or think they know about us) and opt out of having this information shared with advertisers.

How? Go here to find out.

As Marlon Brando once said, “Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to – it’s an absolute.”