For me, it was an advertisement in my gmail for something my spouse had searched for on a separate computer that I had never logged on to. I don’t recall what it was, but it was something like a new cookware set. It was odd. I started noticing it happening again with other people whom I correspond with for items I don’t need (dog kennels near you). I wasn’t on any social media except maybe YouTube.
Later, I started reading about the profiles companies keep, how you have no control over what is collected, for how long or if you want it to stop. I found myself using the computer less and less, feeling uncomfortable being watched if I looked up medical symptoms or just shopping around for things.
My family would show how cool it is that Google knows when you have a doctor appointment and where you are and what traffic is doing so that you need to leave in 10 minutes to get there on time. I found it creepy.
I awoke to see cameras everywhere, tracking cookies, apps tracking me for no reason. People willingly putting spy cameras next to their front door, pointing directly at my bedroom window, where I walk, sending data to Amazon. I started reading how it’s their data and they’ll willingly turn it over to anyone who asks or pays for it. I read about a guy who was arrested (and later released after hiring an attorney with his own money) for being near a home where a murder occurred, unbeknownst to him.
I have nothing to hide, but I have everything to hide. Now mind your own business!
When I was younger I was amazed by how easy it was to track people on the early internet. this is when putting a script tag in a comment section to show images in comments was popular but quickly became exploited and faded away. I also became worried about this in my web development class learning how to use JS and saw how easy it was for a bad actor to execute malicious JS on people’s browsers.
I worked in a field that managed a lot of technology in retail stores. The big ones know everything about you, it’s just astonishing. At the time (around 15 years ago) there was very little oversight, but also most CIOs were inept and couldn’t really make the data sing and dance. Today that is very much no longer true, and it’s almost too easy to build a comprehensive profile of an “anonymous” guest and then attach it to their personally identifiable information, all without their consent or knowledge.
i was online before cookies were online, before smartphones connected billions and everyone put their faces on zuckHead’s site to write each other insults while shitting
Homeland, right? I read it too - it was pretty good but that was so many years ago. Only until recently did I realize that he’s a commentator on internet privacy.
The start was wanting to reduce my exposure to recommendation algorithms. That got me thinking about what absurd amounts of very intimate data companies have about us, and how they can use that to influence people.
Long story short. I googled my name and city and was sufficiently creeped out. Ive been online a long time and just didn’t notice how much privacy had eroded around me. It’s like that parable about how to cook a frog. They just slowly increased the temp on me. Fortunately I’ve jumped out of the pot before I got cooked alive.
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