Verizon | Broadband Essentials and Extras

About Privacy Manager

Privacy Manager helps remove tracking information collected by Windows and your Web browser. Privacy Manager also helps manage your cookies, and alerts you when certain data — such as your IP address, home address, or credit card number — is about to be transmitted over the Internet.

Cookies are text files that are saved to your computer as you surf a Web site. Cookies store your personal information such as a customer profile; they let you make repeat visits to a site without having to type the same information over and over. Unfortunately, many marketers use cookies to track your browsing habits and sell you products or services. Managing your cookies and deleting unnecessary ones helps protect your privacy and also helps improve the performance of your computer.

In summary, Privacy Manager deletes:

Data that you used for searches or when running software.
The record of recently accessed documents from the Documents menu.
Temporary files and files moved to your Recycle Bin.
Cookies from Web sites, unless you specify cookies from certain URLs to be saved.
The URLs for the Web sites that you visited.
Temporary Internet files that are stored on your computer.
Autocomplete entries—text and data that you type when filling out a form.
Index.dat files. These files record the page, cookies, images, or sounds from Web sites you visited, even if these files are deleted from your system. Index.dat files are deleted only after you restart your computer.

Privacy Manager also:

Alerts you when certain data that you've specified is about to leave your computer.
Records the Web sites that left cookies on your computer.
Records all the cookies that were left on your computer.
Lets you allow cookies from certain Web sites to stay on your computer.

To enable Privacy Manager

From the left menu bar, select Privacy Manager.
Select the Enable Privacy Manager checkbox.

To delete data collected by Windows

From the left menu bar, select Privacy Manager.
Select Preferences.
In the Windows Cleanup area, select the check box for the data that you want Privacy Manager to delete.
In the Clean up every ___ minute(s) field, specify how often you want Privacy Manager to delete the data you selected in step 3 above.
Select OK.

To delete data collected by your Web browser

From the left menu bar, select Privacy Manager.
Select Preferences.
In the Browser Cleanup area, check the boxes for the data that you want Privacy Manager to delete.
Select Clean up when your browser shuts down.
Select OK.

To specify data or keywords for privacy alerts

From the left menu bar, select Privacy Manager.
Select Protect Personal Information.
In the Keyword List area, type the words or data that Privacy Manager should set alerts for.
In the Scan for your area, check the IP Address and Hostname boxes if you want Privacy Manager to alert you if that data is ever released.
Select OK.