This post will be my personal experience about trying to gain back my privacy after years of being privacy unconscious. And foremost I want to apologize for my English, if it isn’t perfect, 'cause English is not my first language.

I was already using Linux for the past year. I tried switching to it three times, and only the third time was successful. Also interested in open source I was for quite a long time, but the privacy topic has never really interested me. I was following this stupid statement: «I don’t worry about privacy because I have nothing to hide», which I regret now. But last Christmas, I suddenly realized how much data I was giving away to Big Tech (and not only them). I can’t perfectly remember what did lead me to that realization. Was it some YouTube video, privacy policy that I suddenly decided to check out or something else, but I immediately started to action.

For the past 6 months I deleted more than 100 accounts. Sometimes it was as easy as to press the button, sometimes I had to email support, and sometimes I literally had to fight for my right to remove the account. Even today there are still 7 accounts left, that I can not delete either because support is ignoring me, or because the process is too slow, or because the service simply does not give the right to remove user account.
JustDeleteMe actually helped me very much with that process, and I’ve even contributed to the project a few times, so to the other users who’ll follow my way the process would be at least a little easier.

Today is a special day, though, because I finally get rid of my Google and Microsoft accounts. I can finally breathe free. My situation is still not perfect, 'cause I still have some proprietary, privacy invasive accounts left, like Steam, Discord, or my banking apps. I can’t just immediately drop them, but at least I’ve reduced the amount of information I left behind.
What’s the moral? Welp, it would be so much easier for today’s me if yesterday’s me had been concerned about privacy in the first place.

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    01·
    6 months ago

    That’s not proper and can cause confusion. You frankly should not write like that. It is bad practice and doesn’t even make a lot of sense to do.

    • ResidentCoffeeCat@lemmy.world
      2·
      6 months ago

      While I agree that I think that in most formal situations you should not write that way, I personally see no problem with a more casual writing style like that in a post like this. Seeing as it’s written as the writer’s personal account of their journey to regain privacy, a slightly more casual writing style is fitting. The benefit of a more expressive writing style, in this context, outweighs the potential reduction in clarity, given that most readers will be able to use context clues just fine.

      As a side note, y’all shouldn’t be so quick to downvote this guy. While I don’t agree with his perspective myself, it’s still a fair point of view to have, and it ain’t like it’s being written in bad faith or such. But that’s just my two cents, I s’pose.