It’s not just Google and Facebook that are spying on you.

Your TV, your cellphone provider and even your LinkedIn account have side hustles in your data. But, in many cases, you can opt out — if you know where to look.

I dug into a bunch of popular products and services you might not think of as data vacuums or security risks and found their default privacy settings often aren’t very private. So I collected here some common settings you can change to stop giving away so much. The following links will let you skip ahead to clickable instructions for televisions, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yahoo, cellphone carriers and WiFi routers.

Two weeks ago, I offered similar suggestions on the worst default settings for Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. Thousands of you told me about your experiences trying to protect your privacy and asked about how to go further.

What I learned is that despite the rhetoric from tech companies, few make it easy to be in control of your data. They hide behind menus as confusing as the floor plan at Ikea. I’m a professional gadget guy, and I found even I’ve gotten tricked into handing over too much by my TV maker and phone service.

Many of these companies collect our data so they can sell ads targeted to our specific behaviors and interests. They claim people prefer these kinds of personalized ads — but much more often I hear people complain that targeted ads are creepy. You can love technology as I do and still be angry that Silicon Valley is making surveillance the price of using the Internet.

At the very least, companies should be much more upfront about what they’re doing with our data. I couldn’t get straight answers out of many. Others made avoiding tracking or targeted ads so cumbersome, I couldn’t include them in this list that I hope you can complete in half an hour.

The steps I outline below are small acts of resistance. But I’m hopeful we can send a message that we're going to judge products on privacy — and the wise companies will learn to use it as a competitive advantage.

Your TV is watching you. Often, default settings (or screens you probably clicked “agree” to during setup) allow smart TVs, streaming boxes and cable services to track significant amounts of personal information. They know what you're watching and what apps you use. In 2017, TV maker Vizio even had to pay millions to settle complaints from the Federal Trade Commission and the state of New Jersey for collecting this kind of data with users' knowledge.

  • Recent smart TVs from Samsung, the best-selling brand, track how you use your TV to target ads that Samsung inserts on menu screens.
    • During setup, the TV encourages you to agree to a bunch of terms of service and conditions that include permission for “Interest-based advertisements.” You can say no then, but if you didn’t realize what was going on — or now you’re just not sure — you’ll have to dig into your TV’s settings to stop the tracking.
    • With your remote, go to Settings, then Support, then Terms & Policy, then Interest Based Advertisements and choose to Disable interactive services. (On older Samsung TVs, you might find this under the Smart Hub menu.)
    • You'll find similar settings on smart TVs made by LG, Sony and Vizio.
    • What you give up: More-relevant ads.
  • Cable services also often track the programs you’re watching so they can target ads.

Here’s my job evaluation for LinkedIn: office busybody. Based on the assumption that you want to broadcast your professional life, the social network's defaults expose a lot.

LinkedIn has about 60 data, privacy and advertising settings you can control. To get to them on your phone’s LinkedIn app, tap your picture in the upper left corner, then the gear icon in the upper right corner. On the Web use this link, or go from your home screen to Me, then Settings.

  • Your profile is visible to the public and searchable on Google. Data shared by default could include your first and last name, your number of connections, your posts on LinkedIn and details of your current and past work experience.
  • Every time you look at someone’s LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn tells them you were there.
  • Every time you make an edit on your profile, LinkedIn broadcasts the change to your connections.
  • LinkedIn pings your professional connections when it’s your birthday, too. Why on earth?

You can take steps to keep creepy advertisers out of your professional life, too.

  • LinkedIn by default targets ads at you based on the personal data you enter and also by tracking other websites you go to. It even uses your data to target ads you see outside of LinkedIn.
  • LinkedIn can use your name and photo in ads you see. Who thought that was a good idea?

Unlike other social networks, most people assume what they do on Twitter is public. So maybe you're not surprised to know that it's in the business of selling your attention to advertisers, just as Facebook and LinkedIn are.

  • By default, Twitter will try to target ads to you based not only on what you do on Twitter but also your activity outside the social network, including information it buys from data brokers.

Props to Twitter: Its defaults for permission to track your precise location and collect your address book contacts are both set to off.

Yahoo, now part of a company called Oath and owned by Verizon, is still used by millions of people for email, to follow news and explore the Web. And like its rival Google, Yahoo is making money by tracking you and selling your attention to advertisers. The good news is Yahoo keeps most of its settings in one Privacy Dashboard: yahoo.mydashboard.oath.com

  • Yahoo tracks what you do across its sites and services — including the content of your email and messenger communications — to, you guessed it, target ads at you.
  • Yahoo is tracking your precise location from its apps and websites.
  • Yahoo is following you across the Web to provide “personalized experiences” on other sites and — surprise, surprise — deliver more targeted ads.

Nobody knows more about where you go and what you do than your cellphone provider. And even though you’re already paying them for service, some want to make money off your data, too. Shouldn’t they be the ones paying us for our data?

  • AT&T by default enrolls customers into what it calls a Relevant Advertising program that uses a broad report of your location (such as your Zip code) and other data to let advertisers target you in websites and apps you see on your phone. AT&T also tries to persuade you to click yes — it had even gotten me — to opt in to a program called Enhanced Relevant Advertising that tailors ads using more detailed information, including your Web browsing, app usage, and precise location.
  • Verizon’s data programs include a partnership with Oath that makes it easier for them to track you for advertising. It also has a business selling aggregated data from customers that includes the websites we visit, apps we use and the places we go.
  • T-Mobile’s data programs potentially allow advertisers and T-Mobile's partners to target you based on your location, Web browsing and app activity.
  • Sprint wants to use data about the websites you visit, apps you use and broad location data for its "Mobile Advertising Program” — but participation is turned off by default.

Here’s a concern that’s as much about security as it is privacy: The default administrator password for your home WiFi router probably is … “password.” That’s a problem because anybody within range could log in and change your settings — or, worse, hack into your devices.

Hayley Tsukayama contributed to this report.

Read more tech advice and analysis from Geoffrey A. Fowler: