Don’t be fooled into thinking that ISPs aren’t interested in tracking your Internet connection. Digital information is extremely valuable, & will only continue to become more & more critical to big business & big government.

In reality, there are several reasons why tracking your online activities is very lucrative for ISPs, & why they’ll work every angle to dig into your sensitive data.

What Is ISP Tracking

ISP tracking is a process during which your ISP monitors & records your online activity.

That means that anything from your search history to email conversations to keystrokes is constantly tracked & logged by your Internet Service Provider.

The process of monitoring & logging your online activity is almost entirely automated, & therefore your ISP can simultaneously track hundreds of thousands users, including you.

Why Is Your ISP Tracking You

1. Retention of your data

Data retention is a common practice for ISPs throughout the world since they are usually obliged by law to log & store customer Internet data for a certain period of time.

This is done to give police & security agencies access to users’ personal information in case they need it to conduct inquiry procedures or even mass surveillance.

Though data retention may be important for tackling crimes & preventing acts of terrorism, oftentimes, such a practice heavily violates online privacy rights of ordinary citizens.

Moreover, it puts in danger independent journalists & whistleblowers since they may get exposed & become a subject of public & political harassment.

According to Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee & publicly known American whistleblower, ISPs remain one of the primary sources of data collection for NSA & other intelligence agencies around the world.

2. Selling your data to third parties

Selling customers’ personal data to advertising companies & other third parties is extremely profitable for Internet Service Providers these days, & that’s why they really bother to monitor your Internet traffic.

The thing is your online traffic contains a lot of details about your online browsing & shopping habits, which is really invaluable for marketers to send you “personalized” ads.

Given that marketers are willing to spend a good deal of money to get their hands on your personal data, ISPs will gladly sell it at the earliest opportunity.

What is worse, the practice of selling data is deemed acceptable in countries like the US, which means you won’t be able to protect your privacy rights even at courts. Not only do they collect buying habits, but compiling your activity can allow companies or government to make assumptions about your health, political opinions, professional affiliations, romantic connections, favorite brands, porn habits, & more.

3. Bandwidth throttling

Another reason why your Internet Service Provider may inspect your Internet traffic is bandwidth throttling.

Bandwidth throttling is a practice of slowing down your Internet speeds based on your online activities or services you use.

While ISPs often justify throttling your speeds by saying that it helps them reduce network congestion, in the majority of cases, they limit your connection bandwidth to make you subscribe for a more expensive Internet plan or regulate consumption.

And since net neutrality laws have long gone into history, there is nothing except special tools that can prevent your ISP from doing that.

It is a well-known fact that in some countries where torrenting may be prohibited by law, ISPs can also monitor your connection to see if you share files over P2P networks.

To find out whether you’re involved in torrenting, ISPs analyze patterns of your online behavior & perform deep packet inspection.

In the event you are actively using torrenting software without a VPN, they may send you a warning notice. This can be followed by intentional bandwidth throttling.

Why Should You Be Concerned?

The answer is pretty simple – your online privacy is in danger, & your personal life may be exposed to complete strangers.

Now your sensitive details can be sold to third parties, which means you’re going to be bombarded with “personalized” ads &/or unwanted emails. Given the state of our current cancel culture, this digital tracking could even lead to someone losing their job or experiencing harrassment just because of an opinion or particular tracked behavior.

If you love streaming media or playing games for many hours in a row, your bandwidth may often be throttled.

What Data Can ISPs See?

Since all traffic that you send & receive on the web is routed through your ISP servers, your Internet provider can monitor pretty much anything that you do online. Almost every action online can potentially be tracked.

Things get even worse if you use some services that your ISP offers, like their email service.

The more personal information your ISP has access to, the more can be tracked.

But what exactly can your ISP see?

In case you visit an encrypted website (the one that starts with https://) your ISP can snoop on the following data:

• Your browsing history

• Websites you visit

• Specific web pages on those websites you open

• How much time you spend on those pages

• Your Internet browsing habits

• Your shopping habits

• Your geo-location

• Source & destination IP addresses

However, if you visit an unencrypted website (the one that starts with http://), your ISP will also be able to see:

• Unencrypted email conversations

• Passwords & form information

• Social media data

• Images or photos

• Voice messages

• Text logs

In addition to tracking your browsing activities, ISPs can monitor files that you download using torrent software, content that you stream, & much more.

Do ISPs Keep Browsing History & For How Long?

Your ISP can see everything that you do on the web, meaning it can also track & log your browsing history.

Usually, ISPs retain your search history for at least 90 days.

Of course, you can take some measures to keep your browser history clean.

For example, you can:

• Use incognito mod

• Avoid tracking cookies with “Do not track mode” some browsers provide

• Use privacy extensions

While some of these techniques can help you fight off advertisers or anyone who can use your device to view your history, they won’t prevent your ISP from watching your every move.

How To Tell If Your ISP Is Tracking You?

Unfortunately, there is almost no way to tell when your ISP is tracking your Internet activities.

However, you may notice that all of a sudden, your connection speed starts to drop when you’re streaming video or playing games, & then immediately gets back to normal when you’re doing something else.

That is called ISP content discrimination.

You may also notice that you started to see a lot of targeted display ads while surfing the Internet (your ISP might have sold your activity logs to marketers).

How To Block Your Internet Activity From ISP

To block ISP tracking & finally prevent your online activity from falling into the hands of your ISP, you want to use a VPN that will encrypt your online traffic & protect your digital identity & activity.

Use a VPN

A Virtual Private Network is a service that allows you to encrypt your online traffic, change your virtual location, protect your digital identity, & ultimately stop ISP tracking.

When using a VPN, all your Internet traffic is routed via a remote VPN server, which means nobody can analyze your data & see what you do on the web.

In addition, a virtual private network also changes your virtual location by assigning you an IP address different from that of your ISP.

As a result, your ISP can’t associate the new IP address with your digital identity, & therefore your online identity remains hidden. This allows you to reclaim the vast majority of your digital footprint.

However, there can be some exceptions when the data that you transmit may be protected only partially or not protected at all.

That often happens if you use free VPN services that don’t provide proper encryption or ensure all your personal data is protected by a strict no-log policy.

Such VPN services may also leak your real IP address.

Therefore, it is important to find a reliable VPN provider that can offer you all the core security features & also has no data logging.

Can an ISP Block a VPN?

In theory, an ISP can block a VPN by blocking IP addresses belonging to a certain VPN company or restricting access to specific communication ports or protocols.

However, when it comes to blocking communication ports & protocols, things become more complicated.

For example, an ISP can block the PPTP protocol because it runs on a single port & uses GRE packets.

At the same time, your ISP will be unable to block the OpenVPN protocol as it can run on any port & protocol (TCP/UDP).

Now, if you can’t access the Internet when on a VPN connection, it can be that your ISP provider has really blocked your VPN.

To solve this problem, you can try switching to an advanced VPN protocol such as OpenVPN or IKEv2 in case you’re using PPTP or L2TP.

vTech Ninja’s Connect App utilizes the most advanced VPN protocols, & has a server network that provides the user with plenty of access regardless of location.

In Conclusion

When it comes to preventing crimes or terrorist attacks, ISP tracking can be justified.

However, it’s obvious that ISPs often overstep the mark of what is acceptable by violating your Internet privacy rights & intruding in your personal life.

Luckily, by using a VPN service from vTech Ninja, you can regain your Internet privacy rights & stop ISP from tracking your activities once & for all.

With vTech Ninja’s Connect App, you can be sure that what you do online is only your private business.