Understanding Account Management ​
It is no secret that the more accounts with identifiable information you own, the higher the chance of your data being exposed to bad actors, as well as being a part of data breaches and cyberattacks. Active disposal of inactive accounts, usage of multi-factor authentication and providing websites with fake information can make all the difference in keeping you safer while browsing the web.
Accounts ​
Creating new accounts isn't per se a privacy risk, it's how you use these accounts and services that matters. Social media and forums are especially risky as it's easy to leak personal information without even being aware about doing so. Saying too much on social media has become the norm in the recent years and it's suprisingly easy to forget yourself while scrolling through posts.
Creating Unnecessary Accounts ​
Not creating accounts you don't need is the easiest ways you can manage your data - you neither give out sensitive information, nor create a mess in your password manager. It's a win-win situation no matter how you look at it.
Personal Information ​
There's another easy way to protect your data - not even using it on the Internet. Besides certain government and payment sites you usually don't need to use any real information. Everything from your name, to your address can be replaced with fake information, while more often than not on websites like Amazon you will never even be required to have your address or payment method saved on your account.
One of the worst types of data you should never, ever use on any website is your phone number. A phone number is very sensitive and can allow malicious actors to easily abuse it. Always create your accounts with an email address, and instead of using SMS authentication, you should use multi-factor authentication which is one of the most secure ways to protect your accounts from breaches and attacks.
Account Deletion ​
Most times account deletion is as easy as going to account's settings and clicking "Delete you account". Unfortunately, not every website gives this convinience to their users. When there isn't an easy and accessible way to delete your account, you should consider using a website such as JustDeleteMe. This will allow you to quickly find information about account deletion on any supported service.
Finding old accounts which you no longer use is as simple as looking through your previous logins in your password manager, or searching your email for particular words like: "confirmation" or "activation", as they're commonly used in verification emails. It's also worth looking through physical notepads which you might have used to store some of the more sensitive login information.
Account Privacy ​
How the information you input on different sites will be used, and what for, is almost always found in the website's Privacy Policy. This simple document can give you deep insight into how your data is being handled by the service. How you login on the websites is also an important aspect of privacy as not every login method is made equal.
Terms of Service & Privacy Policy ​
Website's Terms of Service (or ToS in short) is a document which states the legal agreements between a service provider and a person who wants to use that service. Terms of Service have become unnecessarily bloated over the past few years, so using tools like ToS;DR is a great way to get a quick overview about certain websites.
The Privacy Policy states how a user's data will be collected, used and managed. Usually this data will be personally identifiable information that could be easily sold to advertising companies later on in the future. Sometimes it will be explicitly stated that a website does, or does not share the collected data with third parties.
Authentication methods ​
Generally speaking there are two main ways to safely signup on websites:
Email and password - this is the classic way of signing up on websites. It's also the least privacy invading one, besides hardware keys, as you can use an email alias to cover up your email address, and a randomly generated password stored in your password manager to further your security. Using multi-factor authentication on top of that will additionally increase your security by making sure only you are able to approve future logins.
OAuth (Sign in with...) - Open Authorisation is a framework that allows service providers to securely access an HTTP server on behalf of the user. In the process of using OAuth the user will give access to their data, the authorisation server will return an access token, and the application will then use this token to access protected resources. OAuth uses tokens instead of passwords to prove the identity of the user which greatly increases the security of the service.