Immediate Personal Solutions

It will take some time and effort before we can build a more equitable, human centered tech ecosystem, but there are various steps you can take to combat online tracking right now. But it's important to note, there is no magic bullet solution, as I explain in the piece, this is a moving target. It's also important to keep in mind that the online tracking discussed in this project is only one piece of the larger online privacy issue. We all face different threats to our online privacy depending on who we are and where we live, it's important to understand that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the broader issues of corporate and government surveillance. With that said, here are some resources you can put into practice immediately...

Tracking the Trackers

• An incredibly amazing tool for analyzing the various trackers on any given site called Blacklight was recently developed by Surya Mattu at The Markup, which is a rad group of investigative reporters and data journalists keeping an eye on surveillance capitalists (definitely one of the publications I highly recommend using to stay informed on these issues).
• If you're curious to know how vulnerable to device fingerprinting you are, the EFF made a great tool called Panopticlick which can tell you how uniquely identifiable your particular browser happens to be.
• In howthey.watch/you I demonstrate various methods online trackers use, but I don't explicitly share who these online trackers are (with a couple notable exceptions). If you want more insight into who specifically is tracking you and on which sites this happens, there's a very cool browser addon you can install called Lightbeam. Formally called Collusion, this addon keeps track of the various trackers following you as you browse the Web and generates graphs and information you can explore to better understand it all. You can watch a TED talk about it by Gary Kovacs, former Mozilla CEO, to learn more.

Circumventing Trackers

• Perhaps you've heard of IP addresses? These can be used to identify you online but it's a bit different from the browser fingerprinting discussed in my piece. Fingerprints are unique to your specific device, whereas an IP address represents your entire WiFi network, in much the same way your physical address represents everyone at your home. Similarly, when you change your physical location you often also change your WiFi network and thus your IP address as well. Still, IP addresses are used by governments or even your Internet service provider (ISP) to keep tabs on your Internet activity and in some cases control what you can and can not do online (blocking certain sites or even entire protocols). There are a couple of common approaches to circumventing this, namely TOR (The Onion Router) and VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). There are loads of VPNs, personally I use Proton VPN but these days there are almost too many options (I haven't used it myself, but it's worth mentioning that Mozilla now also has a VPN). I recommend researching VPNs and TOR before making use of them, having a general understanding of how they work is an important prerequisite for using them effectively. Do NOT use a VPN you haven't researched.
• As mentioned in the piece, third party cookies are among the most common (though hopefully soon to go extinct) forms of online trackers. The easiest way to block these is to install browser addons/extensions which block trackers like Privacy Badger.
• While addons are helpful, as I mentioned in the piece, one of the best measures you can take to protect your online privacy is to avoid using a browser made by surveillance capitalists (like Google's Chrome) and instead use privacy conscious browsers like Firefox and Brave (built on much of the same technology as Chrome). These are not only starting to block third party cookies by default, but have also started working in protections against other forms of tracking, including browser fingerprinting.

Alternatives to Surveillance Platforms

I left Facebook in 2014 and have been gradually trying to ween myself off of the platforms I know to be causing so much harm in the world... but it's been a difficult process: the convenience, the network effect, the habit-forming UI/UX, it all makes our dependence on these platforms an understandably difficult one to kick. But it's not impossible! Every step we can take away from surveillance capitalist platforms makes a difference. Below are the alternatives I've been using for a while. Again, this is not meant to be an authoritative list, just my personal roster which I share as a starting point or reference...

• I said it before, but I'll say it again. If you're using Chrome, switch your browser. I personally use Firefox , on both desktop and mobile (where I use Firefox Focus). I've recently been impressed with Brave (but still pretty new to it).
• Our web searches reveal a lot about us. When we post something publicly on social media we know others are going to see it. When we send a direct message or email to someone, we assume that's just between us and them. When we search for things online, we're often under the misconception that this is a private moment and behave accordingly. But if you're using Google to search for things, then it's quite the opposite. I've been using DuckDuckGo for years now and was one of the simplest switches to make. They also have a mobile app, but I'd recommend just going into your browser settings and changing the default search engine to DuckDuckGo. In the rare situation where you're not getting the results you want, you can of course still visit Google, but in 99% of cases it's just as good (for me anyways).
• I'm still constantly juggling various email accounts, but my primary personal email for the last couple of years has been Proton Mail, the same folks that produce the VPN I've been using. They're also actively working on "Drive" and "Calendar" apps (still in beta). Speaking of "Drive", I've had my eyes on Etherpad as an alternative to Google docs, but as of the time of this writing have not set one up myself. I'm also a PGP user (here's my public key), but I realize that's not the most practical alternative for most folks these days.
• When it comes to messaging I've experimented with all sorts of privacy minded alternatives like Keybase and Semaphor, but what I've been using most consistently for the last few years has been Signal, on both desktop and mobile.
• Like email, I'm constantly switching between various video conferencing applications, depending on who I'm meeting with. But when given the option these days I've been using Jitsi.

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