If You Give a Zuck a Cookie...

“Online privacy” can seem like a contradictory statement. How private can our online lives really be? This week we find out! We tackle how and why our activity is tracked, the pros and cons of targeted ads, and if anyone actually reads those daunting Terms and Conditions. Colin tells us he’s more than happy to pay the ads away, especially after slogging through The Bachelor with ads. Anna shares her favorite data breaches of all time…including a popular vibrator company that was making VERY detailed profiles of its users. In our Troubleshooting segment, we give you tips on how to improve your privacy settings, the benefits of a VPN, and why regular privacy check-ups are good technology self-care. Then as always we end with some Internet Gold for you. Subscribe and stick around!

Connect with us at @themoreuscroll on Instagram & Twitter,  and check out our webpage. Have any internet sanity tips? Any topics you want us to cover? Email us at whatsup@themoreyouscroll.com.

Tips and Tricks from our Troubleshooting segment:
Check out the VPNs that Colin and Anna use: Mullvad VPN and ExpressVPN
Here is a link to TweetDelete.net that lets you bulk delete old tweets.

Internet Gold of the week:
Anna: Following Dionne Warwick's Twitter journey 
Colin: Band Camp A music platform that directly supports the artists that make them

Transcript

COLIN 0:00:20 
Welcome to THE MORE YOU SCROLL, a podcast about trying to stay sane on the internet. I’m your host, Colin Foy. 

ANNA 0:00:27 
 And I’m your other host, Anna Van Valin.

COLIN 0:00:30 
In today’s episode we’re going to talk about...online privacy

ANNA 0:00:35 
 Sometimes it feels like our every digital move is being tracked. What’s a fair trade for a free service, and what’s just….creepy?

COLIN 0:00:42 
Cookies, trackers, PII... We’re gonna talk about what it all means, how companies get your data and what they do with it.

ANNA 0:00:51 
 And whether even your vibrator is spying on you. 

COLIN 0:00:54
In our Troubleshooting segment, we’ll give you some ways to manage your privacy hygiene and keep your info on lock. Then as always, we’ll leave you with a pot o’ Internet Gold. 

ANNA 0:01:04
Help other listeners find the show by leaving a 5-star rating and review. Connect with us on Instagram and Twitter @themoreuscroll (that’s the letter U), and topics you want us to cover via email at whatsup@themoreyouscroll.com or our website. All those links are in the show notes, folks. 1 2 3 4 let me see that Tootsie scroll! 

BOTH 0:01:28 
(to the left…)

MUSIC

ANNA 0:01:44 
What's up Colin?

COLIN 0:01:46 
Nothing, I was just gonna say, this is the fifth episode, Should we do like a check-in on how we're feeling about the internet.

ANNA 0:01:52 
Yeah, so much has changed.

COLIN 0:01:54 
I'm just so used to being online 24/7, but I'm also not online in the same way as I used to be, which is kind of fun, like I'm on Slack.

ANNA 0:02:06 
A lot of slack, a lot of slack.

COLIN 0:02:09 
I've gotten really used to slack and zoom. I mean this gets into what we're talking about today, but I got off of the Facebook platforms which.

ANNA 0:02:19 
Taking a break.

COLIN 0:02:20 
Has been wild. Well, I deleted my accounts, I took a break for a month, and then I just straight up deleted it... Which has been mostly positive, I will say. I miss groups.

ANNA 0:02:34 
Yeah, Facebook groups.

COLIN 0:02:35 
Facebook groups are awesome.

ANNA 0:02:38 
Well, I wanted to ask, we're almost a year into this pandemic, you were home for a while, and then you tried going back into the office... And then back home, how are you feeling?

COLIN 0:02:49 
I always feel like I'm two steps away from falling apart, it's like I keep... This is such an unrealistic hope, but I keep hoping that the Biden administration will just come out and say, Alright, everybody take three weeks off, we all need a break right now. We're sending out checks. Yeah, this is definitely untenable. We are a country in a mental and physical crisis, let's all recoup and then get back together in three weeks and figure this out.

ANNA 0:03:20 
Plus on insurrection, plus Texas is frozen. Life doesn't stop, all these crazy things are happening and we have not been given a chance to reset in a year, and you know what's getting me lately is I'm bored.

COLIN 0:03:37 
Me too.

ANNA 0:03:38 
I work a ton. I'm busy, very busy. Every day is the same. Every day at the end of the day.<sound effect> There's like, What do you wanna do tonight? And I'm like, Same thing we do every night, pinky. Drink and watch TV.

COLIN 0:03:55 
And I'm bored of TV. Yeah, yeah, I got into the bachelor for the first time.

ANNA 0:04:00 
Oh, wow. How are you feeling about that?

COLIN 0:04:03 
Great. It's such a cooky show, I have no idea what those people are looking for, what any of them are looking for in a relationship... It's so shallow. It's amazing.

ANNA 0:04:13 
Do you think they're looking for a relationship or they're looking to become Instagram influencers?

COLIN 0:04:18 
They're looking for someone who they can be an influencer with, maybe for the rest of their life.

ANNA 0:04:23 
I wanna be the influencer of your heart.

COLIN 0:04:26 
My initial excitement for the show, like I just saw it, just plummet as I was catching up to being current with the season, then I found myself just on my phone while the show is going on, I'm bored on my phone and I'm born with the TV, like.

ANNA 0:04:41 
I've started fantasizing about getting a new couch, 'cause I'm like, maybe the problem is the couch, maybe if I change something anything, like my hips and my back are starting to hurt from all the couch time, and maybe it was just the old... Maybe I've caught the old, but... This is just unlike anything. I stopped by my grandparents house, I saw them for the first time in a year, and it was so weird with the opposite ends of the big living room with masks on, and they're 96. And my grandfather said, Wow, I've been alive for 96 years. I've lived through some of the biggest changes in the world, this last year is the weirdest year... 

COLIN 0:05:25 
Yeah.

ANNA 0:05:27 
I've ever lived through, and I was like, Well, that puts that into perspective. 

COLIN 0:05:32 
Yeah.

ANNA 0:05:33 
So hang in there listeners, you are not alone, and we hope that our next 30-40 minutes are a little bit of a change-up. Hang out with us. I can't offer much. I have no solutions.

COLIN 0:05:49 
Yeah, the Internet doesn't solve our boredom.

ANNA 0:05:52 
No, but we can maybe get better at it. Get better at the internet. So today we're gonna try to get a little bit better at privacy.

COLIN 0:06:00 
Yes.

ANNA 0:06:01 
We started out wanting to talk about privacy and security, and that was, even just talking about privacy is like too unwieldy, we're gonna do a more high level.

COLIN 0:06:11 
The whole show could be about privacy...

ANNA 0:06:13 
Yeah, every episode could be about privacy, so we've delineated, privacy and security as, security are real tangible threats, so someone's gonna hack your information, still your identity, hack into your home cameras, and creep on you, stalking that kind of stuff. And privacy is more, what do they know about me? And what do they do with it? 

COLIN 0:06:38 
Yeah.

ANNA 0:06:41 
Which doesn't mean that there aren't dangers involved in privacy or Privacy issues in security.

COLIN 0:06:46 
True.

ANNA 0:06:47 
But the privacy issues and risks are a lot more about what are you comfortable with, what you want, and what's within your control...

COLIN 0:06:57 
Yeah, it's a lot more of a gray area, right, because there's no... Like nobody wants a stranger to get your password to your bank account... Right, that's a very clear line, but with some of the stuff, people don't mind a little data being mined to improve their experience online or make it more personal or...

ANNA 0:07:20 
Or do not have to pay for certain services.

COLIN 0:07:22 
Yeah.

ANNA 0:07:23 
Is it an understanding that, okay, well, I'm using Google or Facebook or whatever for free? They gotta keep it running. They'll show me some ads...

COLIN 0:07:31 
Yeah, exactly.

ANNA 0:07:32 
Versus some of the sneaky or ways that are buried deep, deep in those sweet terms of conditions that you will never read, and even if you did read them, you can't negotiate.

COLIN 0:07:41
I guess first, we should talk about what data is collected.

ANNA 0:07:45 
What are they looking for, so there's a distinction between data that is tied to you and data that is tied to your device or your ISP or things like that? So if you hear the term PII, and if you guys already know all these things, just bear with us, we just wanna be on the same page, I wanna assume that you know or don't know what we're talking about. So PII is personally identifiable information, so that's anything that's tie directly to you name, address, phone number, that's also a security thing, 'cause that can be used in identity theft, but then there's your device ID, which is an alphanumeric string associated with just the device. 

COLIN 0:08:22 
Right.

ANNA 0:08:23 
So if you get a new phone, it's not tracking what was on your old phone, if you sell your phone, it will continue to track what happened on that device, and that's the way that they can watch your activity over at different apps and websites that you look up on your phone.

COLIN 0:08:41 
They can also track your search history, which if you looked at my search history, you would get a really good glimpse into what I know and what I don't know based on the things I search.

ANNA 0:08:49 
Especially doing podcasts like my other show Every Day is a Food Day is about food and food history, so they'll be like, Why does she wanna know so much about data mining but also bananas, like what... She's doing this deep dive into the banana economy in the Caribbean, but also wants to know about how we vibe... Leaked vibrator data, what is this woman's deal.

COLIN 0:09:12 
How do we advertise to her?

ANNA 09:14 
What can we sell this woman who spent all day researching chili and also microphones?

COLIN 0:09:20 
They also track how long you look at things, this is big on social media, where you're in their app and they can track everything you do in the app, How long you look at things, if you scroll back up to look at something again, if you linger on anything, if you like something, and unlike it.

ANNA 0:09:38 
If you save it if you click a little more caption to read the rest of it... Yeah, they know what you're scrolling and where your eyeballs are going, that's like if you see an analytics for social media, the impressions, basically just how many times it appeared on somebody's screen, and there's also what you buy, what you watch, the games that you play, what you listen to. They're trying to build a profile of you.

COLIN 0:10:04  
So that they can sell you s***.

ANNA 0:10:06 
So they can sell you s***. Not even that, so that they can sell your data to someone who wants to sell you s***. It's more of that. Yeah, so how do you get it?

COLIN 0:10:16  
I think most people have heard of cookies and trackers.

ANNA 0:10:19 
Brilliant marketing, by the way, are calling it cookies...

COLIN 0:10:22 
Yeah, making them sound so appealing. Oh yeah, you could put some cookies on my computer.

ANNA 0:10:28 
I do want a cookie thank you little pop-up.

COLIN 0:10:31
Which turns out that if you click on a link and go outside of Facebook, they can track you through all the websites you go to along the way as long as you are allowing cookies and trackers to do that.

ANNA 0:10:45 
Yeah, especially if you leave Facebook open in a tab or you have the app on your phone, they're still tracking you even when you're... When you're not looking at it, when you're outside of it, all these companies have partnerships with each other, so they'll bury little pixels on different websites. And then if you look at a website that has a Facebook pixel or Google Pixel on Amazon pixel, it reports back to that company that you were there, and... Yeah, a big part of this is buying and selling the data, that's where the big money is. It's not very personal, they're not looking for What does Colin want, they're looking for what does a person like Colin want?

COLIN 0:11:19 
Which on first hearing that, it sounds like a really good thing, like... Oh, good. It's not like a personal attack. But then if you think about it, it's like, Oh, well, it's not personal, 'cause they're doing it to everybody, just 'cause somebody's doing it to everybody, it doesn't mean its like great.

ANNA 0:11:35 
But also it's just creepy to think like they're making a model of me.

COLIN 0:11:40 
Or in other words, we are the product. We are what they sell.

ANNA 0:11:45 
Another place is loyalty programs, so if you have your little browse card or you're in the Sephora beauty insider, like Yes, you're getting deals, and yes, it is engagement and loyalty for that brand, which is really valuable, but they're also selling that data to third parties, telling them exactly what you're shopping. So it is kind of interesting things like the device ID in the cookies because that's how they do the sales and ad targeting, but it's also how they track sales and ad effectiveness because then they know of this ad opened up on your Instagram and then you went to the website. So part of it is not just targeting you, part of it is being able to track, Does this add work? Does anybody look at this and is there a conversion rate to actually follow through and whatever the thing is?

COLIN 0:12:28 
Right. Let's talk about targeted ads. How do you feel about that?

ANNA 0:12:32 
Well, in some ways, this is an extension of what sales and advertising has kind of always done. Right, like if you wanted to target women, you would put an ad in a women's magazine, if you wanted to target older people, you would put your ads on Fox News, so in some ways, it's an extension of those things people have always thought about what's our consumer avatar. Who's our ideal customer, so it's sort of building and deepening that, and you know what if I have to look at ads... Which I do, I'd rather look at ones that are relevant to me.

COLIN 0:13:07 
Right.

ANNA 0:13:08 
Like, I got three months of cable or something when I signed up for some random thing, and so I was watching CNN, I was watching TV live. That's a thing that still exists, everybody. And I was so shocked and impatient at the ads because they were not personalized to me, so it was all like mesothelioma pamphlets and lubricated catheter delivery services basically for Boomers who are falling apart. And I got so impatient and fed up with it because I was used to get ads for things that were relevant to me and I might be interested in it, so in a way, I appreciate it because this is content I kind of have to look at, I do pay for a lot of the subscriptions that take the ads out so for our Spotify and YouTube and all those things, but it did make me appreciate the ads that were more relevant to me. It's more the methods that make me uncomfortable sometimes, I think that if you're using a free service, you're paying for it in other ways, and that's kind of expected. But there's a creepy element to it.

COLIN 0:14:17  
Yeah, like you, I just pay for a lot of services so that I don't see ads... Hulu is probably the biggest one for me. Speaking of the bachelor, we were watching The Bachelor, and Megan said, Man, can you imagine this with ads? I just... 'cause the episodes are already just forever long and they draw things out so much to just try to build up the drama, and I just can't imagine breaking every five minutes for so many ads.

ANNA 0:14:47 
I'm sure there's five ad breaks.

COLIN 0:14:49 
Yeah, so I just don't see a lot of ads. For me, I would be most comfortable with targeted ads within the platform, so they can use... If I'm on Instagram, for example, they can use my data while I'm on Instagram to curate ads for me, but then it's like the tracking to other websites outside of Instagram where I start feeling like, Wait, what... Just 'cause I use your app. You can track me wherever I don't know. 

ANNA 0:15:16 
It does give me that vibe like you guys are talking about me... You and Amazon just like, talk about me when I'm not there. Yeah, and you can put lots of ad blockers in your browsers and things like that, which are very helpful, and Safari has a thing now where you could check who's following you and undo those trackers.

COLIN 0:15:36 
So nice. Yeah, I'm exclusively on Firefox now because of that.

ANNA 0:15:41 
Really is that still a thing.

COLIN 0:15:42 
It's still a thing. It's weird.

ANNA 0:15:45 
So here's a question: do you read the terms and conditions?

COLIN 0:15:49  
No.

ANNA 0:15:50 
No?

COLIN 0:15:51  
No. Do you...

ANNA 0:15:52 
Just an automatic click yes?

COLIN 0:15:54 
Yeah.

ANNA 0:15:55  
I think... I mean, it 100% depends on how much time I have, just the more I've learned about it and the tricky things they can put in there, because again, you can't negotiate, so it's either yes or no, and if you want the service, then it's... Yes, but I am more interested in the weird shit they're burying in there, like... One of the craziest things is, Alphonso, do you know about Alfonzo?

COLIN 0:16:20 
No.

ANNA 0:16:21 
It just got bought by I think LG or Samsung for 90 million, so Alphonso is a listening technology, and it is in everything, so smart TV is smart speakers, set-top boxes, Blue Ray players, DVD players, and it's there to listen to what you are watching and specifically listen to the commercials that you're watching for that purpose we just talked about, which is if you're watching TV and you see a commercial, it hears that you're seeing that commercial and then it tracks your online traffic and movements to see if you went to that website, if you bought that thing, and also to re-target that add to you. So if you're watching TV on a Smart TV and you see a commercial for something and then you're on your phone or your computer, and you see an ad for that same thing, it's not an accident.

COLIN 0:17:09 
Right.

ANNA 0:17:10 
They know what you saw, and so they wanna keep showing it to you because there's this principle and advertising what used to be the rule of seven, I think now it's the rule of 12, but you need to see something seven times before it actually sinks in, and the other crazy thing is they use the data to sell to competitors, so the story that I heard was that during the men's World Cup a couple of years ago, Adidas had an exclusive contract with the World Cup for ads, so Nike contracted with Alphonso and Alphonso would be listening to hear if you were watching the World Cup and then if it heard that you were watching the World Cup, it would send Nike ads to your phone and browsers...

COLIN 0:17:50 
Wow.

ANNA 0:17:53 
Isn't that, it's crazy. It's really interesting and smart.

COLIN 0:17:55 
It's so interesting, every time you hear from one of our competitors, we want you to also hear from us. I mean. I can see why Nike would love that.

ANNA 0:18:03 
Yeah. How do we get around these exclusive contracts, right?

COLIN 0:18:05 
What a crazy company.

ANNA 0:18:07  
Yeah, Alphonso, they're in everything. They are listening to you, they claim they don't listen to human voices, like live human voices, they're just tracking what you're watching and the commercials that you see and hear, so if you're watching like YouTube videos on your phone, they'll hear that too, but it's so emblematic of... We don't care who you are. We don't care who you're talking to.

COLIN 0:18:28 
Yeah, we just wanna see what you allow yourself to get exposed to.

ANNA 0:18:32 
Like, did you see the peanut butter ad? Cool. It's peanut butter ads all day, every day now.

COLIN 0:18:37 
My goodness, it's crazy how inside my house, my experience, my life, these companies can get.

ANNA 0:18:45  
Yeah, we make a lot of money for them that we don't know about.

COLIN 0:18:48 
That's the other interesting thing I get that the deal is that we get to use the services, but it just seems like it's not the best deal as they're getting shit tons of money and we just get to use Facebook or Twitter, even like.

ANNA 0:19:07 
And we get to see memes. Thanks for the memes guys.

COLIN 0:19:09
Yeah, yeah, I got a couple of chuckles every day and they get millions of dollars.

ANNA 0:19:15 
But I do think there are some models here, like the paying extra for no ads, right. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Or even the loyalty programs, it's like, Alright, you're gonna get me 2 off my loaf of bread.

COLIN 0:19:27 
Yeah.

ANNA 0:19:28 
Yeah, sure. Tell somebody I bought that loaf of bread, then there is kind of a transaction in there.

COLIN 0:19:34 
Especially if it's a company you like... If there's a product I keep buying. Yeah, I like that product. I wanna keep buying it.

ANNA 0:19:41
Tell me what's on... When it's on sale.

COLIN 0:19:43 
Yeah, exactly.

ANNA 0:19:46 
We hear about these data breaches all the time, and that does get the difference between security and privacy, that's where I think the line gets blurred, especially if it's Experian that has all of your credit report and credit history, which they sell, by the way, none of this is that protected. Because the whole point is to gather it to sell, but...

COLIN 0:20:07  
Right, right.

ANNA 0:20:08 
I wanted to share with you a couple of my favorite data breaches.

MUSIC  “Anna’s favorite data breaches of all time.”

ANNA 0:20:18 
So in 2017, we vibe, which is a vibrator electronic sex toy company, had to pay out 4 million in a data breach settlement. So how are vibrators collecting data? Well, the whole point of We-vibe is that it's controlled by an app.

COLIN 0:20:37 
Yeah, they have the We-Connect App.

ANNA 0:20:39 
They have the WeConnect app, and then you can control it. Like speed, rhythm...

COLIN 0:20:43 
You can be on the other side of the world and turn on your partner's vibrator from your phone.

ANNA 0:20:47 
If only anyone could go to the other side of the world from their partner...

COLIN 0:20:55 
Yeah, it's true, is like the least compelling product right now.

ANNA 0:20:58 
You know, I could use it from my desk to his desk, but... Yeah, so they're WIFI connected, they were not supposed to gather any data, but they were... And they were selling it, so data on preferences and use settings, things like that, which is amazing. I have so many questions like who needs to know what days you masturbate, who are they selling this data to, who needs to know that you like it?

COLIN 0:21:26 
Well, unless it's like internal research, but it's still.

ANNA 0:21:30  
Internal research and improvement of the products, I think is fair game, but what people were freaked out about was that it was tied to PII.

COLIN 0:21:40  
Right.

ANNA 0:21:41 
It wasn't just they were selling which products you bought and how you use them, it was tied to your email address and your device ID and stuff like that, so that is a data dump you do not wanna see.

COLIN 0:21:53 
That is so problematic.

ANNA 0:21:54 
Yeah, and the other one is Roomba. Colin, Do you have a Roomba?

COLIN 0:21:58 
I don't...

ANNA 0:22:00 
You absolutely need a Roomba, everyone needs a Roomba or the equivalent... There's shark products, things like that. It will change your life. But they are expensive and their wifi controlled.

COLIN 0:22:10 
Right.

ANNA 0:22:11 
So you can schedule them and then you can also link them to your smart devices, so you can say, Hey, googs start the Roomba. Oh God, did I just start it? Is it going to start? So there's data involved, but what they were doing is just so fascinating is the higher-end models will map your house, so the more they go, the more they learn the layout of your house so that they stop bumping into things and it's more likely that they're gonna clean the whole area instead of just going around one area, so they were collecting data on the size of people's houses, the types of floor that they have, whether they were like picking up kitty litter or kids toys, or what they were rolling over and then collecting that data to create home profiles.

COLIN 0:23:00 
Whoa...

ANNA 0:23:01 
Allegedly. Yeah, so I guess if they know you have a huge house, maybe they're gonna offer you bigger furniture or more appliances, or if you have a small house, are they gonna send you ads for, like Apartment Living...

COLIN 0:23:14 
Right, it just makes me wonder like, Oh yeah, is that second-story bathroom that was like, pivotal in the data set.

ANNA 0:23:23 
They weren't sure about you, Colin, but then they hit that second bathroom. So Colin, how are you feeling about privacy? 'cause I know that that's come in and out for you, it has for me too, and a lot of the things that have changed because it isn't just a personal thing, we've been talking about this individually one-on-one, but there's a collective element to privacy, it's building models and those models are just used for ads, they're used for political reasons, they're used for social reasons. So how do we navigate that? We're gonna cover that today. We're gonna solve that question on the more you Scroll listeners, we've got the answer.

COLIN 0:24:02 
That's the thing, it's been a slow progression for me of realizing what the data is for and then re-realizing that I am now the product being sold on some platforms, and then just like negotiating my relationship with that, I think I'm okay with some data tracking and not okay with other data tracking, which is... That's why I left the Facebook platform just because they've had enough issues that I'm just like, yeah, it doesn't seem to me like they really cared too much about being careful about it, it seems to me like they're more likely to just jump in on a new idea that can get them more money, and more and more, I'm more likely to pay for services for ad-free services like Hulu, I paid the annual subscription for Marco Polo. Where are you at with that?

ANNA 0:24:54 
I have definitely scaled back my Facebook usage just personally, for lots of reasons that we talked about in the following unfollowing episode that it feels a little too public for me right now, and it leaves a long weird trail...like I gotta figure out how to delete old Facebook posts in bulk.

COLIN 0:25:12 
Not to mention just the embarrassment of knowing that your thoughts from a few years ago or...

ANNA 0:25:17 
Yeah, this thing that I said when I was 24 as an idiots gonna come back to haunt me, but the thing is, if you delete your Facebook account, you're not deleting any of your previous data, they already have all of that on you, they already have your contacts they already in your friends. They have so much on you, and if you still have a Whatsapp or an Instagram app. They're still getting it. 

COLIN 0:25:37 
Yeah. 

ANNA 0:25:38 
It is concerning to me because I don't think that Facebook is even really paying attention to how far things can go. I don't know that for a fact. But they have the algorithms like YouTube has the algorithms, they build profiles of you and that includes your politics, so that includes if you're posting more, quote, liberal or conservative things, then they're adding that to the profile of you and they're gonna keep showing you that stuff and that's how radicalization gets worse and worse. And the problem that we're having now, and I'm certainly not the first person to say this, is that we don't have a common reality, and this data is not just used to sell me cat food and shoes, it's used to enrage me and enrage other people.

COLIN 0:26:22 
So that you spend more time on the app.

ANNA 0:26:24 
So you'll spend more time... Yeah, more time on the app. You'll feel more dependent on it to get to truth and local newspapers, we've talked about this in our news feed like local sources are dying, and so people are going more and more online, and that really scares me. It will backfire at some point because a soap company doesn't want an ad for their deodorant right under somebody with a Confederate flag, lighting Nancy Pelosi's desk on fire, you know what I mean? Like a company that's like, “we're just trying to sell laundry detergent!” is under something that's like “White Power.” it's going to backfire because again, they rely on... If Procter and Gamble decided, we're out, if Johnson and Johnson decided We're out, they would shut down. So their dependents or being able to target ads to their users is also what might keep them in check, 'cause they gotta keep selling those ads, but the problem is if anything looks interesting, Facebook buys it, they'll never be another Facebook, there can't be... There isn't like China because they're so insulated, but they can't have competitors, that's why Liz Warren, what's to shred them.

COLIN 0:27:32  
Right.

ANNA 0:27:33 
So I have a level of comfort, and this is the interesting thing to me is people know this stuff, data breaches happen, and people don't really change their behavior.

COLIN 0:27:43 
Yeah.

ANNA 0:27:44 
You know? I've been in meetings where someone was giving a report on some new technology and building a data lake and all this stuff, and everybody's like, Oh, that's so creepy, that... And then the second the meetings over, they'll just pick up their phones, and I like beep bop boop what they would have done before.

COLIN 0:28:00 
I think the harm is just not visible enough for someone to make that choice because the benefit of being on Facebook is so clear to the user and any possible bad outcomes that could come from it, it's not super clear what it is, /it's manipulation.

ANNA 0:28:19 
/It's more intangible, then somebody got my password and drained my bank account, or somebody hacked into my home security cameras and is watching me bathe... It's much more intangible than that, and we're harping on Facebook, but also Google, also Amazon, they're all connected, they're all sharing information, but Facebook has become so multifaceted that people go there for everything, so people spend more time on it than anywhere else, if they're engaged with it...

COLIN 0:28:47 
But yeah, I don't know how you make that. That harm more apparent. Congress keeps asking these companies to come in and testify, and that kind of stuff.

ANNA 0:28:57 
Oh my god. The Mark Zuckerberg Congress. Every time I see Mark Zuckerberg testifying in front of Congress. It looks like someone is having a nightmare of a Bar Mitzvah... 

COLIN 0:29:07 
Yeah.

ANNA 0:29:08 
With all these elders surrounding him, it always turns into a nine-hour IT support, 'cause they're always like, Why would I search my name?

COLIN 0:29:19 
So those aren't working.

ANNA 0:29:21 
Well, so what would be better? More transparency would be better, I think getting to customize a little bit, I mean, obviously, that would be a headache for developers and all these things, but maybe it does become more transactional, either you can pay... Although I do think that that is an issue with privilege.

COLIN 0:29:39 
Yeah, totally. 

ANNA 0:29:40 
Because that s*** adds up, so if you wanna pay to not have the ads on Spotify and Hulu and YouTube and all these things like that stuff adds up and not everybody can afford it. But if there's a way to say I opt into these three things, your services on that site reflect that, or if you're like, yeah, take all my data, I'm naked, I'm naked before you, sell my whole personality, then you get full services from that ad or a social media platform. But yeah, transparency, some kind of customization, and its transaction also be obvious that it's transactional, I'll let you have this data and you'll let me use these features on the platform.

COLIN 0:30:21 
I also think we were talking about this, but an opt-in would be really good. I know terms and conditions, feel like an opt-in, but maybe a clearer step by step up in of like, Can we track you when you leave... After you leave the app.

ANNA 0:30:35 
I am seeing some of that stuff that is open internationally, because Europe has much stricter views, and so you can sometimes customize your cookies, which is a good start, but varying things down in the T&Cs is 100% a strategy, 'cause you're not gonna wait through... I think I read something that if you actually try to read all the terms and conditions of everything that you use and sign up for in a year, it would take 76 hours. Wow, I don't have 76 hours to throw out that...

COLIN 0:31:05 
No, when I could just hit accept and use this service now. And I get where they're coming from, 'cause they're like, well, you signed or you signed or agreement, but there's a good argument to make it like, yeah, we didn't know what we were getting into 10 years ago when we first signed up for stuff, now we do... Let's have a nice reset of that.

ANNA 0:31:23 
So much of this is the Dr. Ian Malcom from Jurassic Park. Line of, you thought so much about whether you could, you didn't stop to think about whether you should.

MUSIC

ANNA 0:32:07 
And now it's time for Troubleshooting, this is the part of the show where we offer you some tips and tricks, some solutions, and suggestions so that you can take control of your online privacy.

COLIN 0:32:17  
The first thing is to look through your settings. Devices, apps, web browsers, all the stuff, go through, look at their privacy sections, make sure that you're okay with everything, and adjust everything you're not okay with. Make sure to check which apps have to have access to your camera, microphone, and location. If there's any old apps that you don't use anymore, make sure to delete them because they can still track you if they're on your device, and when you're done using an app, don't just go back to the home screen, close it out so it's not running in the background.

ANNA 0:32:48
Do a social media privacy check-up. Some of the platforms have a process that I'll walk you through, or you can just dive deep into those settings and especially look for what apps are linked to your social media accounts, you... All those websites that say, sign in through Facebook, you've just given that company total access to your Facebook account, I... Embarrassingly, I've done my Facebook and Instagram, but not my Twitter in years, so I went through yesterday and I had accounts that still have access to my Twitter from 2012. Also, if you don't want all those old posts following you, you can delete all tweets and Facebook posts, Facebook via their activity log, and Twitter by things like tweetdelete.net. It lets you Bulk Delete tweets that are over a certain age and set new tweets to expire after a certain time.

COLIN 0:33:38 
When in doubt, incognito mode can come in clutch, it disables temporary data retention, so like cookies, browser history, search records, passwords, anything after you exit. However, know that even if you're in incognito mode, your data is still accessible to some third parties, like your internet service provider, the government, if you're on a work network or a school network in that case... Use a VPN. 

ANNA 0:34:04 
Yes. 

COLIN 0:34:06 
I use movadVPN. What do you use Anna?

ANNA 0:34:08 
I use ExpressVPN.

COLIN 0:34:10
Great.

ANNA 0:34:11 
But turn it off before you wanna watch Netflix because it won't let you watch that show if it thinks you're coming from Korea.

COLIN 0:34:16 
Yeah. 

ANNA 0:34:17 
Schedule a regular privacy check with yourself once a month, once a quarter, poor glass of wine, lights some candles and clear your cash, your browser histories, delete your cookies, check your privacy settings, delete old or unused apps from your phone, think of it as technology self-care a privacy, spa day, and if you want to delete your old accounts, make sure you download an archive of your data first. I'm feeling sparkly. I'm feeling gold. I'm feeling precious.

COLIN 0:34:48  
Alright, let's do some internet Gold.

MUSIC

ANNA 0:35:00 
Alright, Colin, what do you freakin love on the internet.

COLIN 0:35:03  
Today, I wanna talk about a company that's been around for a while, and I think most people have heard of it, but I just wanted to put the spotlight on it because I just love them. Bandcamp.com, if you like indie music and you wanna support musicians, Bandcamp.com is great. Most of your money goes right to the musicians. It's not like Spotify, where most of the money is going to Spotify. I just love that they created this wonderful space where musicians can really own their own stuff and they can set their own prices as an artist, you can even set up so people can pay what they want, all these tools that are empowering musicians across the world. I specifically wanted to shout out an album by my friend Similar Fashion, they have this album called “portrait of” that I just love. I'll link to it in the show notes. Great album, amazing album art, get into it. If you like musicians that are bending outside of the box and bringing you something new but not bending too far out of the box, highly recommend.

ANNA 0:36:16
Box adjacent.

COLIN 0:36:17 
Box adjacent.

ANNA 0:36:18 
Alright, cool. Bandcamp.com. We're gonna check that out. Yeah.

COLIN 0:36:21 
Anna, what about you?

ANNA 0:36:23 
My current online obsession is watching... One, ms. Dionne Warwick learn how to use Twitter.

COLIN 0:36:31 
Yes.

ANNA 0:36:33 
It is glorious. So, Dionne Warwick, I'm sure we all know, she's one of the biggest musical artists of all time, she's like 80 years old, she's a queen. She got on Twitter and she's very publicly trying to figure it... She has no filter because why should she at this point in her life and career? And it's just great things like she thinks she's DMing Shaq, but she's not. She's tweeting publicly. One day she just started tweeting a whole bunch of gifs and somebody tweeted “auntie found gifs,” and she replied, “The gifs found me.” She's like dabbling and making little videos, it's just great, and she's sort of very defensive about the fact that she doesn't know what she's doing, and the clapbacks and the sass coming from her are epic. And so this is not one specific thing to support, but it's just such a wonderful blend of all of these things that we love, and I like being part of the journey.

COLIN 0:37:32  
Such a treasure. You remember when all our parents started getting on Facebook and it was mostly just annoying...

ANNA 0:37:38 
Right.

COLIN 0:37:39 
I feel like this is just the complete opposite of that. It is so endearing.

ANNA 0:37:43 
It is so lovely, and I love that she's already tweeted like 4000 times, and she remains incredibly skeptical about the whole thing, her bio is “I am not writing a bio.” Just to give you a taste... It's glorious. Follow on Dionne Warwick, listen to her music. It's just what the Internet is for.

COLIN 0:38:07 
Well, we gotta log-off, thanks for joining us for this episode of The more you scroll, please subscribe and stick around for the rest of the season.

ANNA 0:38:14
To help other listeners find the show, please leave a five-star rating and review on your platform of choice. Connect with us online @themoreuscroll, that's the letter U, and themoreyouscroll.com, that's the word you, let us know what you thought of this episode and tag your friends you think will like it.

COLIN 0:38:32 
The more you scroll is a production of Van Valin productions and Lindenfield studio. Our production intern is Emma Massey. Our marketing intern is Elaine Oh. I'm Colin Foy.

ANNA 0:38:43
I'm Anna Van Valin. Scroll you next time!