Corporate Surveillance: How Big Tech tracks your online activity

What data do companies have about you? A look behind the scenes shows how valuable our information is and how we can protect our privacy.

When internet privacy is discussed, a lot of people claim they don’t worry about it because they have nothing to hide. There are a few problems with this argument, and I won’t unpack them all here, but some are that “nothing to hide” is subjective to who is watching you. You might not be doing anything illegal, yet, but around the world we’ve seen governments change hands and freedoms vanish overnight. But it also only focuses on government surveillance and forgets that privacy is more than just what the government is interested in. 

Corporate surveillance is a massive invasion of one’s privacy, Big Tech consisting of non-private search engines, social media platforms and e-commerce giants know everything from your favorite restaurants, to your relationship status, to your health issues.  

I have even heard people say they don’t mind sharing this personal information it because it helps delivers them ads more relevant to their interests. And that they like the “personalization.”

What becomes worrisome here is that most people don’t know the full extent of their information being captured, stored, and sold. It’s not simply that a non-private search engines knows your location and what you are looking at online at that moment, but rather it has gathered an entire digital profile on you based off of all your online actions.

But what data do these companies have on you anyway? How valuable could that information actually be to anyone? 

The problem is, we think of corporate surveillance in such a simple fashion –they know the sites you visit– but the actual behind-the-scenes is much more horrifying. Now, assuming you’ve taken no steps to protect your privacy, I’ve previously discussed what your IP address says about you, now couple that with your browsers fingerprint and information (country of origin, language, operating system, version number), and the unique cookies most sites are placing on your system. Those right there start to paint a clear picture of who you are, without even knowing your name. Now, you sign into Facebook, or your Big Tech email account that is tied to your search engine, and they now have your name, email address, and if you haven’t already given it to them, with all this info they can just buy your phone number. 

Now, again, you might say it’s not that big of a deal because you gave them this information and you feel you still have nothing to hide. But now take a minute and think about your search history, and now think about it without context. What does this tell advertisers about you? Worse, if for some reason this info was ever subpoenaed, what does it say about you?

Maybe an extreme example, but just imagine you think your friend might be suffering from depression, so you search “signs of depression” and visit 4 or 5 sites. You’re then bothered by all this talk in the media about gun control and search “how easy is to buy a gun” so you can research where you stand on this matter. Then you’re searching politicians of the opposite party you endorse to see where they stand so you can take legal political action to sway their vote. 

But what do these search engines see? They see you’re searching about depression, buying a firearm, and looking up politicians. They have zero context as to why you’re doing this. Suddenly, you’re nothing to hide is now targeting you with ads about depression and mental health, gun sales, and politics for candidates you don’t even support. Worse, your logged search history tells its own tale about who you are.

I understand this is a rather extreme example, but it highlights just how this info is acquired, stored, and used to make a profile of who you are, all without context of who you really are. This info can then be bought and sold to other advertisers who will continue to create and add to this profile.

Even going back a few steps, what if you were searching for your own depression? Is that information that Big Tech needs to know about you then exploit for a profit? Do you want to see ads for your mental health on every site you visit and have that define who you are to these companies? 

Non-private, Big Tech corporations can know a lot about you, from your IP, location, language, what kind of computer you use, to your phone number, name, address, and the list goes on. Some companies and government agencies are tracking license plate numbers and can even begin to tie those together with your movement around the city or country and the implications about how that can be tied to your overall online profile are downright dystopian. 

Thankfully, there are steps you can take to help address these privacy violations. First, stop using Big Tech, non-private search engines and use Startpage. Now you can rest assured your search history isn’t being logged, and not being tied to a profile of you. Startpage isn’t viewing your IP address, country of origin, or fingerprint. Additionally, if you truly do want to receive ads based directly on what you are searching about, Startpage delivers contextual ads on all search results which are only triggered by the search query you entered. So, you can protect your privacy and keep your relevant ads too! 

Need help switching to Startpage on your browser or device? You’re in luck because I wrote a handy guide here.

Next, you can switch to a privacy respecting browser and use plugins that help add additional privacy to your browser. You can view those recommendations here.

Corporate surveillance is growing at an alarming rate, but you can regain control of your privacy incredibly easily and browse the internet with much less worry.