References and Resources
For starters...
In the "Alternatives to Surveillance Platforms" section of the Immediate Personal Solutions page of this site I discuss some of my personal privacy conscious app/platform choices, but I also mention that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to online privacy, we've all got different needs and challenges. So here are a few other great guides for your consideration...
Learn More
Here's a list of references if you want to learn more about online tracking, the business of surveillance capitalism and the various issues associated with it. As I've mentioned in the other pages, this is by no means an authoritative list, this is just a small curated collection from my own personal research on the subject:
Sources
Below are a set of sources/references for the various claims I make in the my hypermedia essay howthey.watch/you:
Alternative Biz Models
Unimaginative folks in the industry often tell me that mass surveillance is the only sustainable business model for online services. This is not true, but does demonstrate a lack of interest or creativity on the part of these devs. I wasn't able to work this into the essay, but here are some interesting imaginative examples for alternative business models:
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Safiya Noble, author of Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, has spoken and written about how “we need new paradigms, not more new tech” and the role public institutions could play (what would a search engine look like if it was produced by a library rather than an advertising company?)
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The website of a Dutch broadcaster dropped third party cookies in favor of their own tracking-free ad server which turned out being more profitable for them. More privacy and more money.
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The open source and privacy conscious Brave browser has an opt-in feature where you can get paid in crypto currency to view "privacy-preserving" ads.
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Some online publications, like Creative Applications, have experimented with running web based crypto currency miners on user's computers when they visit their site. These sorts of crypto currency alternatives should be made transparent to visitors and they are admittedly a bit radical, but I always find radical ideas inspiring even when they're not necessarily practical.
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We can still also pay for subscriptions. It's an old model, but it's still viable. Consider the way ProtonMail's paid service also helps support their free tier for users who need email privacy but can't afford to pay for it.
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