What (If Anything) Can We Do To Prevent Tracking Online? (Premium)

In addition to being the year of AI, 2024 may also be the year in which we finally learned the true cost of online tracking, thanks largely---but not exclusively---to new EU regulations.

As I wrote in Put Up or Shut Up (Premium), I was shocked to see Microsoft almost fully implement its Copilot strategy in just the first two weeks of 2024. But I'm equally surprised---and, frankly, delighted---by the equally shocking online tracking revelations we've received in just the past few days. Both the new Outlook, a Microsoft product, and Facebook have now been outed for their nefarious ways.

Some will claim this is not surprising. After all, we know we're being tracked online, and if one more person spouts the throwaway adage that "if you're not paying for the product, then you are the product," I'm going to scream. Those are just words. As I noted on Windows Weekly yesterday, there's a big difference between being vaguely aware of something and being smacked in the face with the full truth of it. I compared it to "knowing" that having your first child would be difficult and the real-world difficulty of actually doing so.

And wow.

Look, I'm not a privacy "nut" or whatever, and I approach this topic pragmatically, much as I do with security. And I recognize that even without knowing the full scope of the tracking we endure, and the full size of the secret cabal that has amassed to victimize us, we all make compromises and trade-offs. We choose Google Maps, say, because of its solid record of getting us there on time and avoiding accidents and construction, but we also know that Google is sucking up our location history and other activities en route. What we don't know---what most of us just don't care enough about---is what Google then does with that data. We're not really educated on this topic at all.

I'm not a privacy expert, just as I'm not a security expert. But I have at least been on the right side of history when it comes to this topic. When Windows 10 wouldn't let us turn off tracking and then Microsoft went through a series of promotional gyrations that generated plenty of words but little or nothing in the way of actual privacy, I coined the term "privacy theater." When Windows 11 escalated that enshittification by forcing customers to use Edge even when they chose a different browser, I added an extra chapter to the Windows 11 Field Guide specifically to help readers avoid as many of its privacy invasions as possible. This past year, I complained about OneDrive's incessant pushiness and inability to honor my choices until I made a major configuration change and then finally switched to Google Drive, which I now love and recommend. And I likewise switched away from Microsoft Word after years of Microsoft disrespecting my configuration choices in that app.

And yet. Like you, I had no idea of the scope of the tracking and other privacy invasions, no true understanding of the forces allied against us all. My appreciation ...