Phones, Browsers, and Search Engines Get a Privacy Overhaul

Small companies are showing that the technology we rely on can be redesigned to protect our dataand that consumers are interested.

As the reach of the Internet has grown, so has the mediums favored business model: targeted advertising. Signals recording our activity are harvested as we browse the Web and, increasingly, as we use our smartphones. That information is used to build profiles that help advertisers target ads, and opting out is rarely easy.