Michel Salim @michel_slm@social.privacytools.io

The moment we start seeing “because their fundamental business model is unethical” in one of these is when we’ll know that things are starting to change.

https://www.alphabetworkers.org/resignation-letter/

#SurveillanceCapitalism

Join Tor, Privacy International, and over 50 other organizations asking Google to take action against exploitative pre-installed software on Android devices.

People shouldn't have to trade privacy and security for smartphone access. https://privacyinternational.org/advocacy/3320/open-letter-google
.onion: https://privacyintyqcroe.onion/advocacy/3320/open-letter-google

Hello, I'm new to Mastodon. I'm here because, after reading Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, I'm astonished and outraged that companies like Google, Facebook, and a growing list of other companies are treating us as the means to other's ends. Our experiences both online and, increasingly, offline are being extracted, rendered, and sold to bidders at auction. Forgive me, here I am preaching to the choir. So hello again, I look forward to listening and learning from you.

How to see which sites are sharing your information with Facebook, and make them stop

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/ezvtbe/how_to_see_which_sites_are_sharing_your/

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/29/facebook-gets-info-about-you-from-other-web-sites-how-to-stop-it.html

The Ethical Design Handbook is out!

Featuring insights from the great @laura, @aral and more…

↓
https://ethicaldesignhandbook.com
↑

💚

Stop donating your customers' data to Google Analytics

https://dev.to/goatandsheep/stop-donating-your-customers-data-to-google-analytics-191

"Aside from only letting you sample 25% of your traffic" WHAT?

"Cookie pop-ups are designed to be confusing and make you 'agree' to be tracked. This add-on automatically answers consent pop-ups for you, so you can't be manipulated. Set your preferences once, and let the technology do the rest!"

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/consent-o-matic/

Cheap Android phones have hidden costs

Considering all the technology that is packed into a modern Android smart phone it is possible to purchase them for surprisingly low prices.

Most Android phones share lots of data with Google, carefully changing settings and disabling Google apps can limit the information you share with Google.

Our analysis of the cheap Alcatel 4034X found it, like other Alcatel phones, had app launcher and file manager apps, crucial system components which can not be disabled, which send data to Facebook. It also had pre-installed Facebook apps, which had powerful capabilities, that required advanced techniques to disable.

[A recent blog post from Malwarebytes](https://blog.malwarebytes.com/android/2020/01/united-states-government-funded-phones-come-pre-installed-with-unremovable-malware/) shows how they found that the UMX U683CL phones, some of which are supplied under the USA government Lifeline support program, come installed with similar malicious system apps.

They also have a [blog post](https://blog.malwarebytes.com/cybercrime/2019/01/the-new-landscape-of-preinstalled-mobile-malware-malicious-code-within/) that details how such pre-installed malware can sometimes can be removed.

For apps that can not be removed we recommend using [Net Guard](https://f-droid.org/app/eu.faircode.netguard) to reduce their harm by blocking their internet access.

So what about some of those #Spotify privacy impacting default settings? Spotify desktop app (Mac OS) https://spotify.com/uk/download/mac

When you install the app, Spotify sets a 'privacy' default to ON for cookie tracking, hidden in 'SHOW ADVANCED SETTINGS' (bottom of settings page).

Privacy should be the default not an advanced setting.

See next Toot.

Yuval Noah Harari Is Worried About Our Souls #philosophy #technology #data #big https://getpocket.com/explore/item/yuval-noah-harari-is-worried-about-our-souls

How long before colleges sell aggregate data to be de-anonymized by insurers so they can deny coverage, move to higher risk pools as post-college folks move onto their own health plans?
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/24/colleges-are-turning-students-phones-into-surveillance-machines-tracking-locations-hundreds-thousands/
• https://www.npr.org/2019/12/27/791918140/how-colleges-are-using-tech-to-keep-track-of-students
No opt-out.

Privacy policy update from Tivo. I read it in its entirety since they didn't summarize the update. The key thing to understand is that Tivo (a) just got bought (b) thinks of itself as an advertising company now.

The privacy policy explicitly states that they can and will sell / transfer every piece of information they can gather to advertising partners. What you watch, when you watch it, how long you watched it, where you watched it from, what device you used, which ads you skipped, all of it including a lot of personally identifiable information.

I strongly suggest setting your tivo on fire in a parking lot somewhere. If fire isn't your thing, get a bucket of water and give your tivo an extended and through bath. The solder points particularly need scrubbing with a wire brush.

" I think of program­ming like writing or typog­raphy—a skill that can be valu­able to anyone, not just computer scien­tists or profes­sional soft­ware engi­neers. "

-- https://beautifulracket.com/introduction.html

Nice quote

Excuse me but "Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg won’t talk to the Guardian. So we fed everything he says into an algorithm, built a Zuckerbot, and interviewed it" has got to be the best take. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/dec/22/zuckerbot-mark-zuckerberg-facebook-botnik

"You cannot get healthy and wealthy on your own – Societies make progress, not individuals"

https://ourworldindata.org/global-inequality-of-opportunity

#healthcare #progress

It happend folks, #privacytoolsio has just got its first sponser, time for a party! :D

Opencollective.com/privacytoolsio