The Australian newspaper website with and without ads turned on: more people are already seeking ways to protect their online privacy using simple tools like adblock.

Proposed metadata collection laws are likely to push more than the usual privacy-savvy users into protecting their online identities and may do more harm than good to a growing digital economy. Already, ways of blocking ads and tracking information are proving popular on social media.

The internet as we know it today has grown on top of a network of businesses, advertisers and marketers that coordinate a multi-billion dollar digital economy. It's arguably the entire reason why so many of the world's top websites remain free to use.

As concern over privacy grows, particularly in response to government policies such as proposed metadata collection laws, more users are beginning to consider using tools and techniques that cloak their presence on the Internet. Alarmingly, this has a potential future impact on traditional revenue opportunities for all online businesses.

The use of Cookies and analytic tracking scripts and widgets on web pages can be a contentious practice, but it is done in the open and in reality it is widely accepted (if not by default) by consumers who benefit with targeted offers, free products, or the odd bargain as a result.

Website tracking with advertising networks, for example, in the hands of a business that is clearly motivated by the need to market a product or service is something most of us are reasonably comfortable with - until, of course, that business is revealed to have been compromised or caught abusing our trust in providing personal information.

Tools exist that allow us to opt-out of dealing with businesses that cannot be trusted, and consumer sovereignty ultimately dictates which businesses will and won't survive.

The thought of your data today being applied to the laws of tomorrow should be enough to scare anyone.

But take away the ability for an internet user to opt-out of something, with mandatory metadata collection for example, and the thought of your data today being applied to the laws of tomorrow should be enough to scare anyone.

Driving innocent users underground who will be further motivated to use what are now becoming easily accessible tools is not good for online businesses. Let's look at some of the tools and why.

Virtual Private Networks / Anonymisers

There are numerous providers who allow you to "tunnel" all your internet traffic in encrypted form so that your internet connection appears to be coming from a different part of the world.

This is how your next door neighbour can boast about subscribing to Netflix in the USA from Australia, and it's how some people have connected to anonymous, darker parts of the internet, such as TOR, to buy and sell illegal goods through infamous sites like "Silk Road."

Encrypting all your internet traffic in this way bypasses your ISP completely, making it impossible for them (and anyone watching) to understand or know anything other than the fact you've connected to a VPN service in the first place. Sure, government metadata records would still reveal your VPN usage, but not much else.

Privacy Tools

Useful privacy tools such as PrivacyFix are increasingly common, giving people much more control to configure and manage their privacy especially in the context of Social Media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google.

Privacy tools can also give some great insights into the privacy policies that sites are using and give us the choice to accept or not accept things like "Cookies" from specific websites.

However, if something as simple as a "Cookie" were deemed to be considered valid for collection under metadata collection laws then users would presumably go on a Cookie deleting rampage - this would be disastrous for affiliate programmes that rely on this technology - and thus destroying the revenue upon which many online businesses earn an income.

Anonymous / Live Operating Systems

There exist a number of "live" operating systems that allow you to surf the internet and check your email and do other things, but nothing is saved on your computer. The next time you switch on, your computer is reset and everything starts from scratch again.

It might sound inconvenient, but increasingly there are users who are opting to use such technologies that, apart from your IP address or the relationship you have with your ISP, fundamentally breaks your online identity into "sessions" - so to anyone watching, you look like a different person each time you logon.

While this option isn't perfect - using the same online email account will give you away every time - it certainly will disrupt any third parties attempting to build a full picture of your browsing history over time.

In summary, it is important that we consider that most people shouldn't need to be forced into implementing additional methods just to avoid unjust scrutiny and invasions to their privacy. And certainly not in a way that could disrupt the entire digital economy.

Michael McKinnon, Security Advisor, AVG Technologies.