In order to protect your privacy even more efficiently, you need to do something very simple whenever using an online service or a software. Something that most people fail to do is reading the terms of service, also known as a TOS, from companies or developers’ software. This usually will tell you straight up whether they’re spying on you, selling your data, or using it to sell ads. This will solve a lot of problems with people not realizing that some software is actually the opposite of privacy, but they keep using it thinking it enhances their privacy.
If like me you are both lazy and not a lawyer, check ToS;DR https://tosdr.org/ but honestly it’s like labels on food products.
You don’t need the damn label to know that Coca Cola is not good but water is… so yes, don’t use Facebook, great. You knew that already if you care just a bit about privacy.
Still, if you want to go there, please do check https://tosdr.org/ and if you can contribute back.
What I personally find more useful is F-Droid because if an app is not present on it, it’s rarely because technically it can’t, it’s often because of anti-patterns. The app tries to go on F-Droid only to realize it’s not “just” another store but they have rules, good rules IMHO, like no Google Analytics and whatever backends to track user behavior.
Also Android app analysis like https://exodus-privacy.eu.org/ is quite good, same idea, finding anti-patterns but not in code (which isn’t a good start if it’s not FOSS anyway) but rather in how the app actually behaves.
TL;DR: yes, do read the ToS if you can, but if you can’t don’t just press “yes” or avoid and move on, rely on the work of others like ToS;DR, F-Droid or exodus-privacy!
I don’t really agree that if an app is not on f-droid then it’s always bad, maybe a developer don’t want to stay behind more stores
OP just deflecting and ignoring… here’s the deal about privacy:
If the company doesn’t advertise itself for not saving logs or selling your data: Don’t waste time with the ToS.
They are saving logs and selling your data.If the company advertise itself for not saving logs or selling your data, but it’s American: Don’t waste time with the ToS.
The government can legally force them into cooperation while placing them under a gag order.If the company advertise itself for not saving logs or selling your data and it’s not American: Read the ToS if you want, but it’s not important.
You will hardly find anything that is not open source recommended for privacy. Read independent code review of the software and third party audits of the company.You will hardly find anything that is not open source recommended for privacy. Read independent code review of the software and third party audits of the company.
Yes, and IMHO a good trick to shortcut that is F-Droid. They spend a lot of resources to do all that cf https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Anti-Features/
that’s because the TOS is literally miles long
Well don’t use it if you don’t know what the companies doing. Because we have to take responsibility as users
I read tos’s, but it’s unreasonable to expect people to do so
Privacy lovers aren’t the average person. Just wish these folk that keep wanting privacy would stop being so dumb about it.
the average person deserves privacy too
Too bad you need a law degree to fully understand them
And the time. If you read every single TOS you’d never have time for anything else.
How many service you use? I always read full tos section on privacy, data, ad. Take 20-40 minute for most store. Only once time take.
If TOS too long to read in 20-40 i do not use service.
https://tosdr.org/en exists so you can get an idea on how some orgs are blatantly lying in public statements about privacy.
Can you give an example of stuff people use because they think it will enhance their privacy but don’t?
Because software and services people use because they think it enhances their privacy usually are:Proton (mail, VPN, docs, storage)
Mullvad (browser, VPN, DNS, search engine)
Tuta, DuckDuckMail, SimpleLogin, addy.io, Mailvelope, Thunderbird
StartPage, DuckDuckGo, Duck.ai, SearXNG
LibreWolf, Tor, IronFox, Vanadium
uBlockOrigin, AdGuard DNS, ControlD, Technitium, Pi-Hole, simplewall, Portmaster
Debian, Fedora, Arch, GrapheneOS
Qubes, Whoonix, Tails
Fediverse instances that explicitly say no tracking/analytics, telemetry/data selling, ads, AI trainingReading the ToS of any of these revealed they in fact don’t enhance privacy?
This list is terrible and not even true for some of the things listed. Funny how hard you all are defending not reading. Reading the TOS of some of these would in most cases always inform you of something they practice that they want you to agree to that you may or may not like. So yes a high majority of the time.
There is also a difference between being private and trying to prevent you from being spied on. Duckduckgo doesn’t use trackers but that doesn’t mean they won’t give your IP address and search results to an Alphabet Agency (for one example)
“they keep using it thinking it enhances their privacy.”
Can you give an example of stuff people use because they think it will enhance their privacy but don’t?about DuckDuckGo https://duckduckgo.com/privacy
“We don’t save your IP address or any unique identifiers alongside your searches or visits to our websites. We also never log IP addresses or any unique identifiers to disk.”Sure, you can’t trust American companies for shit, same goes for Brave and its ecossystem, so if you can’t trust the ToS content, what’s the point of reading it, duh :P
If a company doesn’t advertise itself for not saving logs, having no trackers, not using you to train AI, not selling your data, etc, etc, it’s because they are doing all of that, so it’s also pointless to read the ToS… if they say they don’t save logs, etc, then sure, there may be a point reading to see if there are any caveats, but I trust more third party audits (like Proton and Mullvad regularly have) and the code being open source and reviewed independently.
Cool bro
Too bad every car has terms and conditions that are privacy invasive: https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/
Hope you live in an area where you don’t need a car to drive to work or to get groceries.
20 year old cars don’t come with TOS.
Read the terms of service. Doesn’t matter the product. Also we use mopeds in my country lol you all are funny
For every company where I have felt the need to read their terms of service and privacy policies beforehand, only once have I felt comfortable enough to go ahead and use their service.
The other twenty or so times? I have backed out. Usually I email the company first for clarity, which has always resulted in them dodging and dancing around their terrible terms and privacy practices.
It’s great to be informed, but the real solutions needed are regulations and consumer protections. Being informed just results in me never using 99% of software or services.
This bad and stupid advice. Terms of service are written in such a way as to obfuscate what’s happening and often when they change you need to use a tool like diff to figure out what’s going on.
