Big Tech vs. Privacy: It Shouldn’t Be This Way

privacy. You would be hard pressed to find a word that has been used so frequently or with so much weight in recent years. As the world moves towards an increasingly digital future, privacy concerns have reached a boiling point.

From high-profile data breach cases to tales of government surveillance, hardly a day seems to go by without another story of how our personal information is being abused.

Privacy Threats in the Age of Big Tech

The digital age has brought many amazing advances, but also created new threats to our privacy. One of the biggest threats comes from the way big tech companies collect and use our data.

Most people today are familiar with the term “data mining” – the process by which companies collect large amounts of data about our online activities and use it to target ads and sell products. But data mining is just the tip of the iceberg. Many tech companies are now using sophisticated methods to track our every move, both online and offline.

This tracking is made possible by the proliferation of devices connected to the internet. These devices collect a wealth of data about our whereabouts, our behavior and even our physiology. Detailed profiles of each individual user are then created from this data.

These profiles are extremely valuable to companies, who use them to target ads, sell products, and influence our behavior. In other words, they use our personal information to make money.

This business model has come under criticism in recent years as more and more people have become aware that their personal information is being used without their consent.

The way forward

So what can be done to protect our privacy in the age of Big Tech? There are no easy answers, but there are some steps we can take to ensure our privacy is not violated.

The answer is not just a public policy issue, but a general paradigm shift in the way we think about privacy. This would of course include:

• Advocate for stricter privacy laws.
• Use of privacy protection technologies.
• Educate yourself and others about privacy issues.
• Be vigilant about how we share our personal information.
• Understanding of the need for a decentralized and democratized web.

This last point goes back to the original intent of the Internet. In fact, the Internet was designed as a decentralized network where any user can connect to any other user without going through a central server. This design was based on the belief that decentralization would make the internet more resilient to censorship.

The future of privacy

Unfortunately, this vision was not realized. Instead, we have seen the rise of a small number of giant tech companies that now control most of the internet. These companies use their power to censor and manipulate the information we see, and they collect massive amounts of data about our online activities.

This centralization of power is dangerous for democracy and privacy. It gives these companies too much control over our lives and makes it easy for them to violate our rights.

We need to build a new internet that is decentralized and democratized. This new Internet should be designed to protect our privacy and promote freedom of expression. It should give power back to the people and be resistant to censorship and control.

The first step in building this new internet is to create decentralized alternatives to the centralized services we use today. These alternatives are built on the principles of privacy, security and freedom.

Data protection is a complex issue and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. But by taking some simple steps to protect our privacy, we can make a difference. We can ensure that our data is not used to violate our rights and we can help build a new internet free of censorship and control.

Daniel Saito is the CEO and co-founder of StrongNode.