[theboat]

There have been so many opportunities for a grassroots pro-privacy movement to develop, and yet there isn't one. Devastating hacks (Target, Yahoo), election interference (CambridgeAnalytica), and yet nothing.

Acting as if people are unaware of data collection is disingenuous. If you told the average facebook user how much facebook and its third-party partners knew about them, I doubt many of them would stop using the platform.

[ogre_codes]

You seem pretty disconnected from what normal people see and experience. Ask some random/ non-tech people about those hacks, data-breaches, and what their privacy expectations are when doing basic things like web searches. I guarantee you most people don't know who Cambridge Analytica is and couldn't tell you which major banks/ retailers have been breached.

It's not just ignorance, but a sense of helplessness. People don't feel in control and don't have any clue how they might reduce what data leaks out in their daily lives. The thing is, they are absolutely right.

I know and understand a lot of this stuff and I don't feel like I'm in control of my data. Even if you take precautions, Google and Facebook track your progress across the web. If you don't use Google Maps, Google still tracks your location using your IP address for network calls (often when you aren't deliberately connecting to Google services) and both Google and Facebook have been slurping up people's purchase history through credit card companies.

How is someone who doesn't have a clue about this stuff supposed to exert any control or choice when the people attacking their privacy out-gun them so thoroughly?