Part 1/3: Google made a choice. Now it's time to make yours.
Join the resistance by reclaiming your online privacy.
If you’ve seen any recent news and you’ve got a pulse, you—like me—might sometimes feel like the Bad Guys won.
Today, the U.S. Government sponsors ICE “to do whatever the hell they want.” So far, that has involved a lot of broken laws, and over the last year, 39 murdered, people at the hands of ICE1.
This feeling of dread comes not just from our government. But also all the big companies and CEOs that dominate our lives and support this administration—at best because they profit off of it—and at worse because they agree with it.
I’ve resisted in a lot of reactionary ways as a U.S. citizen. I’ve contacted my representatives. I’ve joined ICE Raids Alert neighborhood groups. I’ve marched, screamed, boycotted, donated, re-posted, and shown up. All of these are vital and important, and I will continue doing them.
Still, about a year ago, I was feeling particularly helpless. I disliked feeling that I only “got involved” when times got particularly terrible. I wanted to find a proactive form of resistance that I — a freelance video producer with little influence, a lot of good intentions, and built-up anger — could do.
My research pointed me toward:
De-Googling my life.
There are plenty of reasons to boycott Google. I’m going to detail tons of them.
However, the most recent straw to break the camel’s already-broken back ties into everything happening today with ICE:
Google is hosting a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, and tell local cops whether to contact ICE about the person, while simultaneously removing apps designed to warn local communities about the presence of ICE officials.
As if Google supporting ICE isn’t horrifying and disgusting enough, every interaction with Google services is recorded, logged, and used to tailor ads for you, to sell your habits and information to their partners, and to share with government agencies.
Even by following the guide linked in the last paragraph to “delete and limit what Google tracks,” the author admits that Google still keeps user information “stored in backups or retained for legal or operational reasons.” And if any third-party websites use Google’s tools (spoiler: 80% of websites use Google Analytics alone, not to mention all the times we “sign in with Google”), well, that’s also tracked.
So if Google openly supports ICE and uses our information freely to support its partners (including ICE), then every person we’ve contacted, every conversation we’ve had, every idea we’ve drafted, every file we’ve saved, every phone number we’ve stored, every place we’ve visited, and every email we’ve ever sent, is not safe2.
This is more than just reclaiming our digital privacy.
It’s about protecting our community.
Why we should care about our digital privacy
I used to think that only bad people had something to hide online, and therefore reasons to care about privacy. And when I thought of “bad people,” I meant people planning terrorist attacks and bank heists. Good people just wanted to store their photos and send funny memes.
But reporter Glenn Greenwald explains that this binary thinking is misguided. And it’s not because we have warped views of who is good and bad.
It’s that we don’t get to decide who or what is good or bad. The folks in power do.
For [those in power], “doing bad things” typically means doing something that poses meaningful challenges to the exercise of their own power.
So if you don’t have full faith in those in power—in Google, the Trump administration, the FCC, or Apple/OpenAI/Amazon/every-other-big-company—to make fair and reasoned decisions about appropriate and inappropriate behavior on the Internet… then maybe it’s time to reclaim your privacy.
And if you feel like there’s any kind of personal information you don’t want those corporations to have—whether it’s who you know, what you talk about, or where you are—then it’s definitely time.
When we agree to the terms and conditions of Google, we gain smart applications that make our daily lives easier. But we also agree to be monitored at all times, creating “a society that breeds conformity, and obedience, and submission. Which is why every tyrant—the most overt to the most subtle—craves that system.”
If you’re willing to render yourself sufficiently harmless, sufficiently un-threatening to those who wield political power, then and only then can you be free of the dangers of surveillance. It’s only those who are dissidents—who challenge power—who have something to worry about.
Near the end of his speech, Greenwald says, “You may be a person who, right now, doesn’t want to engage in that behavior, but at some point in the future you might.”
I believe that future is now.
I believe that reclaiming our online privacy and intentionally choosing who and what has access to our information are directly tied to today’s Resistance.
And I believe it’s worth evaluating how you use the Internet.
If you, like me, want to resist in a meaningful way;
If you want to prevent mega-monopolies from making more money off you;
And if you want to invest in your privacy, for today and for the future, to safeguard against your information being used to potentially expose or hurt yourself and the ones you love;
Then I encourage you to consider de-Googling your life as well.
If you want to learn more about how to actually de-Google, I’ve written part two as an easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide.
I hope you’ll check it out.
Thanks for reading.
At the time of publishing.
In case you haven’t heard this turn of phrase before: “If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.”