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Here are some mildly terrifying things
I learned when I recently did an online privacy checkup: Google was
sharing my creditworthiness with third parties. If you want Target to stop sharing your information
with marketers, you have to call them. And, my favorite: If you would
like Hearst, the publishing giant, to stop sharing your physical mailing
address with third parties, you have to mail a physical letter with your request to the company’s lawyers.
Cool cool cool.
I was inspired by this story my colleague Kashmir Hill wrote this month about the company Sift, which collects your consumer data and gives you a secret consumer score.
“As
consumers, we all have ‘secret scores’: hidden ratings that determine
how long each of us waits on hold when calling a business, whether we
can return items at a store, and what type of service we receive,” Ms.
Hill wrote. “A low score sends you to the back of the queue; high scores
get you elite treatment.” (If you’re interested, you can request your
own secret dossier by emailing privacy@sift.com, though the company is backed up because of the “recent press coverage.” It took them two weeks to respond to my request.)
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Surprised? We were, too
Like many people, I was a little stunned at the intimate level of data that was being collected. Ms. Hill was, too.
“I
know that we are tracked in surprising ways, and have reported on those
surprising ways extensively, but even I was shocked to get a 400-page
file on myself back from a company I’d never heard of,” she told me. “It
was bizarre to see what I had ordered from an Indian restaurant three
years ago in the report and disturbing to find all the private Airbnb
messages that I had sent to hosts. I didn’t think any company beyond
Airbnb would have that data.”
- Unlock more free articles.
It’s
no secret that we’re being tracked everywhere online. We all know this;
every one of us has a story about an alarmingly specific ad appearing
on Facebook, or a directly targeted Amazon promo following us around the
internet. But as internet-connect devices become more prevalent in our
everyday lives — think smart TVs, smart speakers and smart
refrigerators, for example — and as our reliance on smartphones
increases, we’re just creating so much more data than we used to, said
Bennett Cyphers, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights organization that advocates for consumer online privacy.
“There
are just more streams of data out there to be aggregated and tied to
profiles and sold,” Mr. Cyphers said. “Because people don’t realize that
their car is collecting data about their location and sending it off to
some server somewhere, they’re less likely to think about that, and
companies are less likely to be held accountable for that kind of
thing.”
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He
added: “Information is being shared completely haphazardly, and there’s
no accountability at any stage, especially in America.”
Who cares? I have nothing to hide
We’ve all heard that one before.
“The only people I’ve heard say, ‘Who cares?’ are people who don’t understand the scope of the problem,” Mr. Cyphers said.
“A
lot of the tracking systems out there make it easier for law
enforcement to gather data without warrants,” he said. “A lot of
trackers sell data directly to law enforcement and to Immigrations and
Customs Enforcement. I think the bottom line is that it’s creepy at
best. It enables manipulative advertising and political messaging in
ways that make it a lot easier for the messengers to be unaccountable.
It enables discriminatory advertising without a lot of accountability,
and in the worst cases it can put real people in real danger.”
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Still, there are signs that things could be improving, if slowly. The Cambridge Analytica scandal,
Mr. Cyphers said, “dredged up the worst parts of the industry into the
press and popular knowledge,” which in some ways forced companies and
lawmakers to acknowledge the issue. Sweeping changes, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act and Europe’s GDPR,
have led the way in giving internet users new rights and protections,
and Mr. Cyphers said that “popular awareness and the techlash has opened
up room for real regulation.”
But we’re a long way from a privacy utopia.
“As long as you can make a buck and what you’re doing isn’t illegal,” Mr. Cyphers said “someone’s going to do it.”
What can I do?
First, be more cautious of the information you voluntary hand over.
“Don’t
hand over data unless you have to!” Ms. Hill said. “If a store asks for
your email address or ZIP code, say no. When Facebook asks you to
upload your contact book, don’t do it. If you’re buying some sensitive
product (prenatal vitamins, medication), don’t use your store loyalty
card and use cash.”
Added Mr. Cyphers:
“Think hard before you enter your email into a form online about why
the company actually needs your email and what they might do with it.
You can lie. It’s not illegal to put a fake email, or a fake phone
number or a fake name in the vast majority of services you sign up for,”
he said. “There’s no reason they need it, there’s no reason you have to
give it to them.”
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Beyond
being more wary of handing out your data, there are some things you can
do about the data that is already out there — and now we come back to
that privacy checkup I mentioned earlier.
One of the best resources for opting out of advertiser tracking is the website simpleoptout.com,
which provides links to the opt-out pages for some of the most popular
destinations online — places that are definitely tracking you as you
read this.
Some of the major ones you should opt out of right now include:
- Google (This one will take a while, it’s a labyrinth of menus and settings.)
Additionally, do a checkup of how social media sites are using your data:
There are also extensions you can install to your web browser to prevent some online tracking. The EFF has built two tools you should install — Privacy Badger and HTTPS Everywhere — and also recommends the extension uBlock Origin. The EFF also has this guide to Surveillance Self-Defense, which has an extensive library of guides to protecting yourself online. And as for your general browsing, think about using Mozilla’s Firefox if you don’t already; this story from The Washington Post will tell you why.
Your smartphone is a whole other game of cat and mouse, but there are a few basic things everyone should do. This guide from USA Today is a perfect place to start, whether you have an iPhone or Android device.
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Phew!
It’s a lot, I know, and unfortunately we’re only scratching the
surface; protecting your privacy is a never-ending process that requires
constant vigilance. But each of these steps is worth the time
investment, and perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind: Don’t
let yourself be lulled into a false sense of security.
“I
wish I could say it has changed my behavior,” Ms. Hill said when I
asked her if reporting her story on Sift has changed her online
behavior, “but what’s become clearer and clearer to me in reporting on
privacy over the last decade is that you can’t completely stop the data
collection (unless you go live in a dark cave sans power).”
She
added: “But at the end of the day, there is little we can do as
individuals; there’s really a need for change on a more systemic level
to give us more control over our data.”
I want to hear about your experiences as you do a checkup on your digital privacy. Tell me on Twiter @timherrera.
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Thanks, have a great week!
— Tim
Tip of the Week
This week I’ve invited the writer Kate Oczypok to teach how to make the perfect table centerpiece.
With
the holiday season now upon us, I’m starting to think about what I’d
like my holiday table to look like. And if there’s one part of a festive
table that makes for great conversation, it’s a gorgeous centerpiece.
If
you’re fretting about the last piece of the puzzle for your holiday
dinner, here are three ideas for the perfect centerpiece this season.
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Use your space wisely
If
you live in a small apartment, chances are you’re not going to go for a
big, cascading centerpiece. Wirecutter, a New York Times company that
reviews and recommends products, suggests using tea lights in votives
to set the mood; they won’t drip wax on the table and since they’re
shorter candles, guests can see one another across the table. Also, the
centerpiece won’t look as if it’s overpowering your entire apartment.
Think outside the box
When
our dog passed away last spring, my boyfriend and I were overwhelmed by
the generosity of friends and family. Our loved ones had sent us five
bouquets of flowers and we didn’t know what to do with all of them.
Since Easter was just days away and we had friends coming for dinner, we
put a leaf on our dining table and lined the center of it with the
bouquets. It was a beautiful tribute to our dear old Moe.
Go for the unusual
If
what you choose to put at the center of your table is unusual, chances
are it will be a great icebreaker, especially for guests who don’t know
one another. This Air Plant Trio
is small and just oddly shaped enough to encourage some fun dinner
talk. They come with eight different choices for planter color, too, and
they look great grouped together on a holiday table.
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