Tracked everywhere? Fight back, escape GAFAM
Privacy is disappearing 👻
The right to privacy is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 12 stipulates that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy… “. Yet, never, in the history of humanity, has private information been so accessible for big tech corporations.
Paradoxically, people accept less personal privacy even if we do not precisely know how our data is processed. By 18 years old, a person will have posted more than 70,000 posts according to the British Children’s Commissioner.
With data you share and what is inevitably collected without you even know, big corporations’ algorithms can predict your personality. Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft (GAFAM) and others know you better than anyone else.
Smile, you are being tracked 😊
GAFAM business models are powered by data - your data. If you are wondering what and how much they know about you, well, it is, more or less, everything. For instance, Google captures your name, phone number, photos and videos, payment information, GPS, activity on third-party sites, purchase activity and more. Worse, Facebook even collects your religious views and sexual orientation.
For an exhaustive list of what data big tech companies have on you, check Security Baron examination of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter privacy policies.
GAFAM stores more than 1,200 petabytes and enjoys a quasi-monopolistic situation thanks to size and technological advance. According to Michel Barnier, “the monopoly of the GAFAM is a serious issue, which will be at the heart of the (French) presidential debate […]”. The EU and, particularly, France have taken important steps towards GAFAM regulation and considers that the amount of data collected is worrying.
Besides governments regulation, individuals can participate in limiting GAFAM monopoly as alternative solutions do exist.
Fight back: some of the best alternatives to GAFAM 💪
>De-Google your (search) life :
A Princeton’s WebTAP privacy project found that Google trackers are installed in 75% of the top million websites. DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine that prioritises personal data protection and will help you avoid Google tracking you.
Do you want to go beyond and find alternatives for all Google platforms? Check DeGoogle Hub.
>Use Diaspora (or even Twitter) :
Diaspora is a non-profit and user-owned social medium that counts more than 859,000 users. We are far from Facebook’s 2,9 billion users, but the project could have been more successful if individuals were more concerned about their privacy. The value of Diaspora would have increased with the rise of people using it; the network effect Facebook was built upon.
If you believe that Diaspora is a failure and that your friends won’t use it, you can try Twitter. It is less data-hungry compared to Facebook.
Check Security Baron infographic to see what data Twitter collects versus Facebook.
>Signal, a similar user interface to Whatsapp with a better security
Signal is a free app providing the same features as Whatsapp with much more privacy. Unlike Whatsapp, Signal will not collect your metadata and messages are directly stored on your device.
It is better than Telegram because end-to-end encryption is set by default: most Telegram users do not know that they have to manually set it.
The aim of this article is not to be exhaustive. The idea was rather alert about GAFAM monopoly and the existence of alternative solutions. If you would like to find all GAFAM alternatives, please visit chatons.org.
Privacy over convenience?
Do I consider GAFAM to be evil? No! Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft have greatly simplified our life and contributed to human progress. In addition, some of the alternative solutions suggested in this article will not provide the same level of convenience as GAFAM. For instance, as DuckDuckGo does not store your data, search results are not personalised.
Privacy vs convenience is the trade-off. While most people will choose to sacrifice their data, I believe that using alternative solutions can pressure GAFAM to improve their privacy policies and, thus, offer better platforms and services.
About this article
This article has been written by a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Strategy Management. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminate the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.
