Default control over your data, is privacy. Your personal metrics, financial data, geographic data, biometric data, and data that you generate, should be considered private. In most terms of service that you have agreed to, there is egregious overreach in their interpretation of data ownership, claiming nearly complete copyrights over anything you transmit over their network. “Private” means the default amount of information you give out is none at all. From there you decide what you want to share.

If you are casually browsing, reading news, using apps, you are leaking personal information to every service provider in your communications chain. Your operating system is gathering motion and GPS data. Each app you use, each website you go to is gathering personal identification data. When you agreed to the Terms of Service of your communications provider (Bell Canada, Rogers, Telus, etc) you waived your rights to privacy. Every time you arrive at a website and dismiss a nag screen saying they use cookies, you are agreeing to allow your information to be used to identify and monetize you. You also implicitly have just agreed to the Terms of Service of all of their advertising affiliates. You have just given permission for all these actors to trade and sell or otherwise monetize your data.

If you are logged into a website or app you have explicitly accepted the terms and conditions of the website. By definition, internet business functions, like buying from Amazon, booking an airline ticket, accessing government websites, and social media sites like Facebook and Tiktok, cannot be done without getting an account.