---
# System prepended metadata

title: Privacy footprint

---

# Privacy footprint

#### Your identity
![](https://i.imgur.com/q51GSge.png)
![](https://i.imgur.com/lRO2EPj.png)
Spokeo: [no results](https://www.spokeo.com/908-251-3120) for my phone number

#### Google:
![](https://i.imgur.com/7o5JpFg.png)
Ads: no brands or topics chosen for me

With social platforms and online networks so prevalent and seamlessly integrated into our daily lives, there seems to be almost a sort of general consensus that we're okay with giving up our privacy in certain, specific ways. And maybe that's slightly unnerving, but it's true. Personally, I've found the best examples of this through my TikTok feed. When I travel to or even just *talk* about traveling to a certain destination, suddenly all the videos presented to me on my "For You Page" are centered around that place. Just last week, I booked train tickets to New York City for a weekend in December. Later that same day, I found all the videos shown to me were "Top 5 NY food spots you need to try" or "Holiday happenings in NYC" or "New pop-up store opening this weekend in Manhattan." And although it can also be a bit useful and convenient, I definitely find it unsettling when I think about it for too long.

I think there is a justiable concern for privacy online, especially since learning of apps randomly taking screenshots/record of screen activity to send to third parties. Like Haridy remarks, this is arguably worse than the initial rumor of Facebook secretly listening to your conversations, because it seems like there are endless ways to track consumers in endless ways. I also think that because your phone usefulness and attractiveness to hackers and advertisers being positively correlated places us in this toxic cycle. We rely too much on our devices to actually fight back against tracking attempts effectively. Although it can be reduced, this comes with downsides as well. As outlined in Kernighan's reading, private browsing doesn't really have any effect on what your visited sites remember about you (meaning they'll likely recognize you anyway), incognito mechanisms aren't standardized so defaults typically still leave you defenseless, and numerous sites simply don't work without cookies. Ultimately, I think participating in social networks and utilizing the internet's resources is voluntarily giving up some privacy to a certain extent. 