People definitely treasure their physical property more than their personal data in the online space. How many people joke about how quickly they press accept without even reading the terms and conditions on apps, and websites and the like. Sometimes, people even boast about it. I’m one of those people who pride myself on always reading some, if not all those terms and conditions. I like to know what I’m working with, and to make sure they didn’t throw in some crazy and ridiculous things for fun, like the soul of your firstborn or something. That being the case, I stumbled across Google Activity the other day, and I was thoroughly freaked out. It has so much saved data on me, that I immediately changed a lot of settings, thoroughly cleaned my computer, and have been taking my time on the internet much more seriously. Therefore, the following is my strategy:

Operation: Freak Them Out

Basically, use different methods of entry (e.g. phishing emails, popups, terms and conditions), and get them to agree to put software on the device.

If they say no, or deny access, have a little screen that tells them they just practiced safe browsing and to keep up the good work in cyber safety

If they say yes, or grant access either one of two things could happen:

• Cyber safety game

Make a random cyber safety game appear at certain times. Like if you’re creating an account, let them know when a password is too weak, or if they’ve used it before and stuff. Maybe have a point system, and make them practice cyber safety until they reach level 3, and the game stops.

• Start slowly changing ads to be very specific, with the information they gave you access to.

Google Activity kept tabs on any website I had visited, but also my keystrokes, and had a lot of saved passwords that I’m almost certain I had never told them to save. If I had gotten a notification saying “Hey, EL, we’ve noticed you haven’t been on Netflix for the last 4 days. You sure you don’t want to finish Altered Carbon?” I would have flipped out.