Privacy

A few years ago I wrote a series about taking back your privacy, starting with the humble password manager. That series was about defense: stopping other people from reading your stuff. This post is about something adjacent but different — ownership. Who controls the place where you speak, and who can take it away? You’ve probably lived it: an account is suspended with no appeal. A platform changes its rules, its owner, or its algorithm overnight. A whole community disappeats because the company hosting it pivoted, got acquired, or simply switched off the lights. None of this requires malice or even a government, it’s the default failure mode of putting your entire online identity on infrastructure you don’t control. ...

Does privacy matter? You may thing that you have nothing to hide. Like most of us, you are not engaging in criminal activities online. But how would you feel if someone followed you around, everyday, taking notes about what you buy, what you read, what you tell your friends about that weird new colleague, etc. ? In this multi-part guide, we’ll review how you are tracked online and what you can do about it. ...