09 Oct 2022 Search

(When privacy people send an opt-out, RtK, or RtD, you have to acknowledge it. May never see them again, so why waste the opportunity? This is a draft of a letter to include with the response. Might not get this approved as is, though.)

Updated 21 Oct 2023: Permission Slip and Google Chrome updates.

Dear [name],

This attachment does not contain any information specific to you or any legally required information.

Still reading? Good. First of all, I want to wish you well on your privacy quest. I hope that you will return and check out our company someday in the future, when all this corporate surveillance stuff is over.

Sometimes, when you’re installing and configuring privacy protection tools, or taking actions like the request you sent to us, it can feel like you’re barely making any progress. But each of your individual privacy choices has a bigger impact that just the protection that it provides for you. In the long run, your real impact will be not so much in how you’re protected as an individual, but in how you help drive future investments away from surveillance and toward more constructive projects.

Please keep doing what you’re doing. You’re not just making a better society, you’re helping me. If creepy surveillance works less well as a way to reach you, then I won’t have to deal with as much creepy surveillance at work. And the less that creepy surveillance matters on the company side, the less risk and work for you. We can help each other out here.

Nobody has time to do every possible privacy tip. From the inside of the corporate surveillance business, I have a pretty good point of view to see what works best. From what I can see, here are some of the steps that you can take that look like they will be most effective over the next year or so.

Update 20 Jan 2025: effective privacy tips is my current list of individual privacy advice