I was at a conference last week where Uber (among others) presented just how much data they are vacuuming up from your "smart" phone. At the very least you should turn Location Services/System Services/Frequent Locations "Off" if you value your privacy - here's a timely post on how to do this

One of the other presenters was a streaming service (I won't say which one, but think BBC iPlayer or Hulu or Netflix) who made a presentation on the effectiveness of what's known as "geoblocking". The intent is to stop people in one region (the USA, say) from accessing video streams in another (the UK, say). Many people simply use a VPN in the target country, but the streamers try to build up a list of IP addresses that they believe are used by VPN providers and blacklist them. It's a cat-and-mouse game because, they claim, they can't "look through" the VPN IP address to find the originating IP address. Undoubtedly cdnmatt has figured out a way to do this and is charging squillions of bitcoins to supply the software, but the streaming service doing the presentation was sceptical of such an approach. The alternative approach is a DNS service that fools the streamer's server into thinking you're in their country. I prefer UnoTelly for simple video streaming eg. the BBC when I'm away from the UK

For VPNs, of course, you could always do what I do - have a set of servers or PCs around the world that you log onto, maintained by friends, and then log onto whatever you want as if you're in that country ie. a set of private VPNs. No need for a commercial VPN provider - although I also sometimes use one. Come to think of it, most people couldn't do what I do, since they don't have a network of friends around the world who would allow that to happen. Thank goodness for Kommie's Boys. It's wonderful to be me

And since I'm giving away free tips - do you ever come across those pesky news sites that limit the number of "free" articles you can view in a month? The Financial Times has a limit of I think 15 in a calendar month, other sites I've been on allow 30 in a month. You can by-pass that limit altogether - just open up an Incognito window in your browser every time you visit and all those limits go away. Don't believe me - try it for yourself