I love getting emails from readers – it’s what makes this column fun to write.

Interacting with people and finding out what they want to know about is great.

My recent column about technology helping people age in place and face the challenges of keeping up with technology as they age brought more emails than any topic I’ve covered in quite a while.

I’ll try my best to respond to everyone. I may not have all the answers, but we are going to go through the ones I think will benefit the most people.

Let’s start with an email that asks, “About 85% of the time I bring up a website, I immediately get a pop up asking me to open my settings so this website can determine my location. Why does any website need to know my location? I always select 'DENY.'”

For the most part, websites want to know your location to make your visit to the site more useful, such as locating nearby stores or shipping availability times. Some sites even use your location to establish where you usually use your computer so they can detect logins from other parts of the world that might be suspicious.

Location data can also be used to tailor ads that show up on their pages. You might even get specialized offers, depending on where you live.

I was shopping on a clothing store website just today, and as I clicked on shirts in my size and color preference, I could see if the selection was in stock at my local store. As I clicked from color to color, the “in stock” indicator changed to reflect the current inventory situation.

Sites like Ticketmaster will use your location to show you events in your area first. Sites like Amazon will use your location to estimate how long it will take them to ship items to your home. Sites like Netflix want to know where you live because they serve up different content to different countries. Sites with logins and limits like one or two concurrent streams will use your location to help determine if you’re sharing your passwords with people outside your household (depending on the terms of your service).

But not all location information is to help you. Plenty of information is collected on your location and combined with cookies from your computer to paint a picture of your browsing habits that can be shared with advertising partners or sold to analytics firms.

Not every website sells data to third parties, but you better believe sites will collect whatever data you allow and they’ll analyze the heck out of it to try to squeeze the most money out of you.

So denying location data to websites or not allowing cookies is not a bad practice.

You’ll be giving up a bit of convenience in exchange for a bit of privacy.

Saying no when sites asks for your location is fine. You can always add your location when you check out, if you decide to place an order.

I’ll be working through more of your topics in the coming weeks. Next up will be some TV-related questions.

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