What I wish people understood about privacy is that
the less tech adjacent a company is, the worse their privacy record.Meta and Google will never sell your data. They will collect it and use it for targeted advertising for sure, but they consider it far too valuable and useful to sell. This is because they have the tech and expertise to use their data well.
A grocery store or a gas station chain, though? They're clueless about tech, don't know what to do with the data, and have to aggressively compete on prices. If some savvy data broker comes to them, offering them a way to essentially gain market share by pushing prices lower than the competition and selling your data to make up the loss? That's an offer they can't refuse.
Hardware manufacturers are largely on the grocery store side; they're not data-savvy and they want to make things cheaper than the competition, so they're almost forced to do these shenanigans to win the competitive rat race.
If you want to meaningfully increase privacy, don't quit Meta, quit Target, Visa and LG.
Meta and Google will never sell your data. They will collect it and use it for targeted advertising for sure, but they consider it far too valuable and useful to sell. This is because they have the tech and expertise to use their data well.
A grocery store or a gas station chain, though? They're clueless about tech, don't know what to do with the data, and have to aggressively compete on prices. If some savvy data broker comes to them, offering them a way to essentially gain market share by pushing prices lower than the competition and selling your data to make up the loss? That's an offer they can't refuse.
Hardware manufacturers are largely on the grocery store side; they're not data-savvy and they want to make things cheaper than the competition, so they're almost forced to do these shenanigans to win the competitive rat race.
If you want to meaningfully increase privacy, don't quit Meta, quit Target, Visa and LG.