I remember when I was young, being told not to say or do anything online I didn't want others to know (private messaging being the exception). When did we collectively forget this lesson?
Among other things, the line between online and local to your computer has been blurred quite a bit. Before all this JavaScript tracking became common, the only information a website would get when you visited a page was... the page you loaded and the IP you loaded it from. A third-party may have gotten similar information if there are embedded resources.
Now, though, thanks to client-side analytics, that website and any of those third parties may be recording your mouse movements, checking to see how long you stay on the page, fingerprinting you based on what addons/fonts you have and what your screen size is, etc.
It's more than just on the web. If you took a photo on a camera, it stayed on the camera. If you take a photo on your phone... is cloud sync enabled? Because it might be by default. I was pretty shocked at how pushy the preloaded apps were when I recently bought a budget Android phone.
You are being surveilled and tracked by governments and corporations regardless of what information or actions you willingly make/provide. People should be aware of how this is happening and methods of protecting themselves. Simply not saying or doing anything online you don't want others to know is absolutely not an effective method of maintaining one's privacy in the modern tech landscape
I mean... people have been using the internet for porn for a long, long time. We've never expected our email provider to also happen to collect analytics on our less public browsing habits. "Private" mode was originally just to keep your porn out of your browser history, not to defeat trackers.
We didn't. But both the scope of our online activities and the capabilities of online adversaries have increased. "Not saying or doing anything online" is no longer sufficient to make sure others don't know.
