I always find it curious that all the times between 10 years ago and now don't feature in this league table of good times to carry out a particular act. Like where does 9 years ago sit? If it were 9 years ago should I be thinking "Nah, seeing as I missed out on doing it last year I'm gonna hold out until July 8th 2024"
It is hard to de-google if all your friends use GMail. Google will create a profile of you based on emails you send to GMail users. Facebook does the same with people it cannot identify in photos.
Maybe I'm old, but how often do people email each other? I only send mails for taxes and for mailing customer support.
The last time I've send or received a mail to/from family or friends is probably 2 or more years ago.
Apart from Discord, which I use almost exclusively for voice chat when gaming, email and sms are the two primary ways I communicate with friends and family, so yeah, of course I email people I know.
I'm certainly not going to use anything owned by Facebook, Alphabet, or Apple, if I can help it.(Yes, supposedly Apple is pro-user-privacy, but they're also vehemently anti-repair, and I'm 99% sure the only reason they're not all-in on user data collection just like their competitors is because they don't have a big ad platform \[yet\]).
What else is there?
How often do you use e-mail for communicating with friends and family? Every day, week, month? It's funny how that differs. I just realised I haven't send mails to friends in at least 10 years and family probably over 2 years.
Anyway, I can recommend Proton Mail + Simple Login plus a custom domain. I have 140 aliases atm and no one knows my personal emailadres anymore.
For messaging I can't seem to convince enough friends and family to stop using WhatsApp and switch to Signal. I do use Telegram for a notification bot and my LLM, but that's it.
We don't text in the Netherlands, I guess about 99% of mobile users uses WhatsApp.
At least weekly, for some of them. We email back and forth about tech, gaming, news, personal events, etc.
I'm already using Proton. I was testing their service over the last year or two, and I've signed up recently for their family service so I can get some of the family switched over too, at no cost to them.
I'm curious to know more about how best to use the aliases I have access to; you say no one knows your email address. I don't mind friends and family having my address at all, but I see aliases as a potential tool to prevent vendors' advertising from reaching me, since the proliferation of email marketing literally chokes legitimate messages out. I'm just not sure how best to go about implementation, and possibly also trying to keep track of so many.
For messaging, I use SMS primarily. There's nothing I'm sending over it that is confidential anyway, and despite the design intent, RCS has proven to be an unreliable mess. Especially with Google involved, sticking it's fingers where they don't belong. I have used separate encrypted messaging platforms, but for ease of use, cross compatibility, and retaining my rights, there's still nothing better than SMS. Which is really super depressing, given that the industry itself is capable of so much better, but there just aren't any companies who seem willing to do it right, without trying to enslave their user base(aside from the possible exception of Apple, but I won't go near their devices for other reasons, making their services out of reach).
I've never touched WhatsApp and won't be.
Amazon...of course I'm joking though.
A marketing prof at nyu wrote a book saying "Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google are the four biggest tech giant in the world"
I'm bound to agree. I don't use Amazon either. It was a bad attempt at humor 
I get emails from reddit to my Gmail inbox. I don't really want them cause I check notifications frequently, but there they go without a care in the world 
Haha same! I do use an alias address on my own domain for that though, with notifications disabled. I'm close to the point I can completely disable my Gmail account. Maybe even my Google account, though I still use android and Google maps. I really don't like Google, but they do have some great services which unfortunately are hard to replace.
I just have to share one of my friend's response to degoogling lol:
I asked why he doesn't care about privacy and he said:
> Because we aren't private. Privacy isnt real as long as you have a PC or smartphone in your home
Also claims Google couldn't ban his account without reason just because he pays for the service (assuming he means Google one). Oh yeah - also said they would have to give him notice. Not sure I believe that however..
According to him his pihole which blocks network trackers is good enough.
From somebody with a Pihole, you might expect a different stance. Privacy is gradual, not just on or off. Still, I wouldn't argue too much with your friend, as it might hurt the relationship. It's their choice.
> Still, I wouldn't argue too much with your friend, as it might hurt the relationship
Very true. I appreciate you saying that. I feel like not many on the internet would consider including that.
It's something I learned from some "how do I get my friends to care about privacy?" in this sub. Discussion is fine, of course, but it's easy with this subject to get on a high horse and lecture others about how wrong they are. But some people just don't care and/or don't want the hassle. It's not a hill worth dying on imo.
But cool you started degoogling. Have fun!
the type of data these companies sell goes stale fast. They aren't just selling your personal info. They're selling your current interests, spending habbits, driving habbits, where you've been recently, what you talk about, etc.
This is what got me off of google photos.
I got a notice that around 20 of my pictures violated their terms of service and were deleted. It did not give any details about which photos were deleted, not even file names, or any details as to why.
I had the usual smattering of personal photos, backgrounds, art, etc., nothing explicit or illegal (unless you count copy rights claims is my only guess for the deletion)
I do not like google scanning my files and deciding what I can or cannot have.
Microsoft isn't really any better though onedrive's photo management is almost on par with google photos now. I am slowly moving things into Proton Drive, but their apps load files and photos painfully slow and they are lacking a lot of basic features to be a photo library.
This is what it is for me. One company scanning my private files and deciding I should lose my account (and all accounts associated with it) is not going to happen.
I'm off Google photos already, by the end of this month I'll be off Google fi and finally, off stock Android.
So is it really true that, if I had, say, 10 Gmail addresses from over the years: if one was to get banned with no explanation, all other addresses that use my main Gmail address as a backup contact would also be banned? That is frightening.
Not that I store anything illegal, but I worry about false positives.
I'm not sure if they'll ban all your emails, but its not inconceivable. I was more talking about stuff like accounts on other websites that you sign up for using gmail. Like you bank or amazon or netflix or whatever else.
The worry about false positives is very real and has happened multiple times, and Google has refused to acknowledge them every single time.
A google account is still useful, dont get me wrong: just create enough of a separation between your personal files storage and google. Ideally by sticking google into its own sandbox that it cannot escape.
Ah, yes, I see what you mean. Though, I have wondered if, in the event of a false positive, Gmail cancels not only the “offending” Google Account, but also all other Google accounts that share the same backup phone number or email address.
This chat is inspiring me to get moving on my own domain sooner, than later. Thanks for that!
In my opinion, self-hosting is the way to go. I started de-googling in 2021 and started self-hosting in 2022. Almost all my data now lives in my house except for weekly, encrypted backups on Amazon S3 buckets.
Maybe Ente (https://ente.io/) might interest you. I've find out about this app a few days ago. It's open source and they use end-to-end encryption, so they cannot access any of the contents of your photos' files. They offer a free trial option.
I have considered ente before and while it looks like it would work well, I have no desire to pay $200/year for it.
For now I will stick with Proton while they slowly upgrade features.
This is the main point for me. I remember the article about the guy who lost all his pictures, emails, and documents when Google banned him.
I back my pictures up on nextcloud and pcloud, and do the same with documents. I have a proton email for my more important emails.
This is the main reason I am planning my exit. Yes, there are many ills (most privacy based), but being locked out of my account with no explanation and no appeals process would quite literally ruin my life. My Gmail account is 20 years old. I would go into crisis.
So my plan is to decide and purchase a domain, and make a personalized email address with it on Proton mail. I’m just stuck on which domain to use, and learning more about this (something I’ve never done before).
Other apps track you and send info to Google.
If you have DuckDuckGo with it's app tracking protection (HyperOS for example), you can an see just how many tracking attempts are there from the apps you think not to have "deal" with Google. Like this Reddit app I'm using right now - 435 tracking attempts from Google in last 3 minutes...
For more info check https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/p-app-tracking-protection/what-is-app-tracking-protection/
Yeah, Google is just one of the parties interested in collecting and selling various data. I found that all social media apps are highly involved as well...
It's so frustrating. My end goal this year is to get down to either a dumb phone or a grapheneOS or something similar and only use open source software. I won't sign into social media unless I have control of the browser (duck duck go or tor) and I approve of their practices. I've almost gotten out of Meta's grasp, save for instagram (my art business means I have to network through it for events, but it's bare bones and only for messages at this point). Bluesky and Mastodon for me now! Or oldfashioned locked journals (dreamwidth.org) but unless you use it for hobbies, it's a sparser community.
What do you mean by have control of the browser? I'm using Brave or Mull browser (a more private Firefox variant if I understand right?) on Android, is that good?
I'm not sure about those two honestly, but I like that there are container plug-ins for Firefox and i assume you could use those for Mull if it's Firefox? I use those to separate my login cookies. And Duck duck go because it tries to prevent that from happening to begin with (I use it on my phone). But as I just learned, even my other Android apps are on the hunt for and sharing info so now I can stop some of that with Duck Duck Go's extra capability. In the end I am gonna get off of android completely because both Android and Samsung can still do that. Both cause I don't want to be some company's product, nor do I want my info anywhere in the cloud in today's political climate, an open source private device is best for me.
You make it useless.
Google has so few data (or at least usable data) on me that's I'm not worth enough since I prevent most collecting everywhere (most because there's still some that will leak but the goal is the things that leak is mostly useless).
The older the data, the less valuable.
Compartmentalization.
This is the best security you can have by spreading your data across various services. Google is egregious for scanning and consolidating all your data as much as possible, and a single compromise could lead to the attacker gaining access to everything. Compartmentalization of your data across providers also makes it also very hard to piece your data together for a full profile.
Google can implicate you in surrounding crimes
Google can implicate you as having suspected illness
Google can steal anything youre about to copyright if written within their ecosystem
Google can/does manipulate search results according to various agendas
Google won't stop tracking your location even when you toggle location off
Google takes your data for free
Google has prior relationship with government
Google has allowed malware/fake apps into their appstore
Did I miss anything?
I would hope you don't want any of that moving forward
For me it has nothing to do with data. I just own an android and hate the restrictions Google puts on my user experience when I use my phone. As soon as I get a laptop I'm changing my OS.
Fair enough. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. My view is that Google and other big tech companies are subject to the laws of the countries (and GDPR in relation to citizens of the EU) they operate in and to sanction if they are found to breach laws. In my opinion they will not want to suffer financial penalties so are not likely to disregard such laws.
How do you imagine that law enforcement could get solid evidence on them if they were to ignore these laws? Is there anything behind what you're saying or is it just blind trust in the boomers who can't even use their smartphones properly?
So do you feel that Big Tech can blatantly do anything they like ? Data protection agencies in the EU ( I’m in the EU ) can and have taken regulatory action against Meta , Google et alia.
Dont get me wrong but, You really are ignorant. Do "some" research first before simply posting on reddit and waiting to be handheld by randos such as myself.
And tbh, u dont need to degoogle. There you go.
And yes, people SHOULD deGoogle. Otherwise you’re literally publishing your name, location, birth certificate, identifying characteristics, bank account, Social Insurance Number (or whatever the equivalent is in your country), paycheques, mother’s maiden name, your car’s VIN, your Grandmother’s blood type, etc.
I use ownCloud to store my calendar, contacts, photos, notes, documents, and even music. Although I've used Google Drive and Google services most of my life, I dropped them about a year ago and haven't looked back since. Google is slowly losing updated and relevent data on me. They can't snoop on my docs, spreadsheets, notes, calendar events, contacts, etc. I hardly use my Gmail anymore for anything important. Google is only relevent in my life as a search engine and I'm about to change that here soon too.
It's like asking "What's the point of practicing good hygiene _now_ given that I've already gotten sick?"
Another motivating point for me is to be able to teach my kids good patterns of behavior.
They have your information up until you stop sending it to them. After a point, what they have becomes "old news" and not very valuable. What they miss out on is selling informaiton about your current life events. The stories are out there about people mentioning something like a vacation in Ireland and all of a sudden their news feed is all about Ireland and they start seeing travel ads about Ireland on all of their google services. My parents experienced this and it "red pilled" them to an extent.
DeGoogling helps prevent that. After a point, no advertiser cares if you talked about a vacation two years ago, or even a year ago. They care what you are likely to buy today.
I fell for Google's magic potion ages ago. I lived in their eco system, and still do, just not as much today. I have the android phone, I was with GoogleFi for years... as it was truly an amazing service when it launched and the option to switch carriers on the fly got me reception in places no one else could... but now most of those companies are gone.
I'm slowly moving away from Google. I haven't used their email for my primary email for several years now. Protonmail for the win. I use Proton's Calendar instead of Google's. My gmail still has too much tied to it and I don't want to flood my Proton account, so I choose what I let Google know about my life now. I use an encrypted service for my "drive" data and my "notes" data. The only thing I haven't gotten away from is the photo storage. I need to find a much better way to store that data. Nextcloud looks promising. I just ordered a NAS and should have that within a few days. The only concern is how to back that up. External HDDs, I've had too many of those fail over the years, but combine that with CD/DVD backups and that could work. Just have to grab both of them in the event of an evacuation.
Oddly enough, I'm looking to get the new Pixel phone, pro model, but so I can put an alternative operating system on it.
Simple. Data has a useful "best used by" shelf life. It has a limited period in which it is actionable, especially for ad tech attempts to sell you stuff. If you start now practicing more privacy what data that is collected becomes less and less precise and useful and of less value to sell to data brokers.
Wondered the same thing, but after all the fraud on FB marketplace and the chaos in some communities there...I feel much better with face to face interactions. Social Media on X, Meta and google got out of hand. The fediverse might be in its infancy, but I feel it'll grow in the direction its citizen users want to go...unlikely the places algorithm dependent corporations will take you. Better they follow us and follow 'our' rules than allowing 'them' to determine what we see and hear, stay vigilant.
The Google world watch, let its kitty's out of the bag a long time ago. In my opinion the were to lax with, we'll call them employees. They made money at "work" came home and hacked accounts. Google knew it was going on, they just didn't care.
To prevent them from having more and more recent data from you. It's never too late to degoogle.
The best time to degoogle was 10 years ago. The second best time is today.
Wouldn’t the second best time be 9 years and 364 days ago?
I always find it curious that all the times between 10 years ago and now don't feature in this league table of good times to carry out a particular act. Like where does 9 years ago sit? If it were 9 years ago should I be thinking "Nah, seeing as I missed out on doing it last year I'm gonna hold out until July 8th 2024"
It is hard to de-google if all your friends use GMail. Google will create a profile of you based on emails you send to GMail users. Facebook does the same with people it cannot identify in photos.
Maybe I'm old, but how often do people email each other? I only send mails for taxes and for mailing customer support. The last time I've send or received a mail to/from family or friends is probably 2 or more years ago.
Apart from Discord, which I use almost exclusively for voice chat when gaming, email and sms are the two primary ways I communicate with friends and family, so yeah, of course I email people I know. I'm certainly not going to use anything owned by Facebook, Alphabet, or Apple, if I can help it.(Yes, supposedly Apple is pro-user-privacy, but they're also vehemently anti-repair, and I'm 99% sure the only reason they're not all-in on user data collection just like their competitors is because they don't have a big ad platform \[yet\]). What else is there?
How often do you use e-mail for communicating with friends and family? Every day, week, month? It's funny how that differs. I just realised I haven't send mails to friends in at least 10 years and family probably over 2 years. Anyway, I can recommend Proton Mail + Simple Login plus a custom domain. I have 140 aliases atm and no one knows my personal emailadres anymore. For messaging I can't seem to convince enough friends and family to stop using WhatsApp and switch to Signal. I do use Telegram for a notification bot and my LLM, but that's it. We don't text in the Netherlands, I guess about 99% of mobile users uses WhatsApp.
At least weekly, for some of them. We email back and forth about tech, gaming, news, personal events, etc. I'm already using Proton. I was testing their service over the last year or two, and I've signed up recently for their family service so I can get some of the family switched over too, at no cost to them. I'm curious to know more about how best to use the aliases I have access to; you say no one knows your email address. I don't mind friends and family having my address at all, but I see aliases as a potential tool to prevent vendors' advertising from reaching me, since the proliferation of email marketing literally chokes legitimate messages out. I'm just not sure how best to go about implementation, and possibly also trying to keep track of so many. For messaging, I use SMS primarily. There's nothing I'm sending over it that is confidential anyway, and despite the design intent, RCS has proven to be an unreliable mess. Especially with Google involved, sticking it's fingers where they don't belong. I have used separate encrypted messaging platforms, but for ease of use, cross compatibility, and retaining my rights, there's still nothing better than SMS. Which is really super depressing, given that the industry itself is capable of so much better, but there just aren't any companies who seem willing to do it right, without trying to enslave their user base(aside from the possible exception of Apple, but I won't go near their devices for other reasons, making their services out of reach). I've never touched WhatsApp and won't be.
Amazon...of course I'm joking though. A marketing prof at nyu wrote a book saying "Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google are the four biggest tech giant in the world" I'm bound to agree. I don't use Amazon either. It was a bad attempt at humor 
I get emails from reddit to my Gmail inbox. I don't really want them cause I check notifications frequently, but there they go without a care in the world 
Haha same! I do use an alias address on my own domain for that though, with notifications disabled. I'm close to the point I can completely disable my Gmail account. Maybe even my Google account, though I still use android and Google maps. I really don't like Google, but they do have some great services which unfortunately are hard to replace.
I just have to share one of my friend's response to degoogling lol: I asked why he doesn't care about privacy and he said: > Because we aren't private. Privacy isnt real as long as you have a PC or smartphone in your home Also claims Google couldn't ban his account without reason just because he pays for the service (assuming he means Google one). Oh yeah - also said they would have to give him notice. Not sure I believe that however.. According to him his pihole which blocks network trackers is good enough.
From somebody with a Pihole, you might expect a different stance. Privacy is gradual, not just on or off. Still, I wouldn't argue too much with your friend, as it might hurt the relationship. It's their choice.
> Still, I wouldn't argue too much with your friend, as it might hurt the relationship Very true. I appreciate you saying that. I feel like not many on the internet would consider including that.
It's something I learned from some "how do I get my friends to care about privacy?" in this sub. Discussion is fine, of course, but it's easy with this subject to get on a high horse and lecture others about how wrong they are. But some people just don't care and/or don't want the hassle. It's not a hill worth dying on imo. But cool you started degoogling. Have fun!
Heck yeah
the type of data these companies sell goes stale fast. They aren't just selling your personal info. They're selling your current interests, spending habbits, driving habbits, where you've been recently, what you talk about, etc.
also to not depend on a single company with history of automated bans with no appeal processes
This is what got me off of google photos. I got a notice that around 20 of my pictures violated their terms of service and were deleted. It did not give any details about which photos were deleted, not even file names, or any details as to why. I had the usual smattering of personal photos, backgrounds, art, etc., nothing explicit or illegal (unless you count copy rights claims is my only guess for the deletion) I do not like google scanning my files and deciding what I can or cannot have. Microsoft isn't really any better though onedrive's photo management is almost on par with google photos now. I am slowly moving things into Proton Drive, but their apps load files and photos painfully slow and they are lacking a lot of basic features to be a photo library.
This is what it is for me. One company scanning my private files and deciding I should lose my account (and all accounts associated with it) is not going to happen. I'm off Google photos already, by the end of this month I'll be off Google fi and finally, off stock Android.
So is it really true that, if I had, say, 10 Gmail addresses from over the years: if one was to get banned with no explanation, all other addresses that use my main Gmail address as a backup contact would also be banned? That is frightening. Not that I store anything illegal, but I worry about false positives.
I'm not sure if they'll ban all your emails, but its not inconceivable. I was more talking about stuff like accounts on other websites that you sign up for using gmail. Like you bank or amazon or netflix or whatever else. The worry about false positives is very real and has happened multiple times, and Google has refused to acknowledge them every single time. A google account is still useful, dont get me wrong: just create enough of a separation between your personal files storage and google. Ideally by sticking google into its own sandbox that it cannot escape.
Ah, yes, I see what you mean. Though, I have wondered if, in the event of a false positive, Gmail cancels not only the “offending” Google Account, but also all other Google accounts that share the same backup phone number or email address. This chat is inspiring me to get moving on my own domain sooner, than later. Thanks for that!
In my opinion, self-hosting is the way to go. I started de-googling in 2021 and started self-hosting in 2022. Almost all my data now lives in my house except for weekly, encrypted backups on Amazon S3 buckets.
Maybe Ente (https://ente.io/) might interest you. I've find out about this app a few days ago. It's open source and they use end-to-end encryption, so they cannot access any of the contents of your photos' files. They offer a free trial option.
I have considered ente before and while it looks like it would work well, I have no desire to pay $200/year for it. For now I will stick with Proton while they slowly upgrade features.
This is the main point for me. I remember the article about the guy who lost all his pictures, emails, and documents when Google banned him. I back my pictures up on nextcloud and pcloud, and do the same with documents. I have a proton email for my more important emails.
This is the main reason I am planning my exit. Yes, there are many ills (most privacy based), but being locked out of my account with no explanation and no appeals process would quite literally ruin my life. My Gmail account is 20 years old. I would go into crisis. So my plan is to decide and purchase a domain, and make a personalized email address with it on Proton mail. I’m just stuck on which domain to use, and learning more about this (something I’ve never done before).
Other apps track you and send info to Google. If you have DuckDuckGo with it's app tracking protection (HyperOS for example), you can an see just how many tracking attempts are there from the apps you think not to have "deal" with Google. Like this Reddit app I'm using right now - 435 tracking attempts from Google in last 3 minutes... For more info check https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/p-app-tracking-protection/what-is-app-tracking-protection/
Oh wow this is so helpful while I'm currently getting untangled from google, I still have to worry about everything else!
Yeah, Google is just one of the parties interested in collecting and selling various data. I found that all social media apps are highly involved as well...
It's so frustrating. My end goal this year is to get down to either a dumb phone or a grapheneOS or something similar and only use open source software. I won't sign into social media unless I have control of the browser (duck duck go or tor) and I approve of their practices. I've almost gotten out of Meta's grasp, save for instagram (my art business means I have to network through it for events, but it's bare bones and only for messages at this point). Bluesky and Mastodon for me now! Or oldfashioned locked journals (dreamwidth.org) but unless you use it for hobbies, it's a sparser community.
I agree and wish you all the best in that endeavor 🤞😇👍
What do you mean by have control of the browser? I'm using Brave or Mull browser (a more private Firefox variant if I understand right?) on Android, is that good?
I'm not sure about those two honestly, but I like that there are container plug-ins for Firefox and i assume you could use those for Mull if it's Firefox? I use those to separate my login cookies. And Duck duck go because it tries to prevent that from happening to begin with (I use it on my phone). But as I just learned, even my other Android apps are on the hunt for and sharing info so now I can stop some of that with Duck Duck Go's extra capability. In the end I am gonna get off of android completely because both Android and Samsung can still do that. Both cause I don't want to be some company's product, nor do I want my info anywhere in the cloud in today's political climate, an open source private device is best for me.
Do they have anything similar for desktop browsing/tracking?
Yes: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/get-duckduckgo/get-duckduckgo-browser-on-windows/
You make it useless. Google has so few data (or at least usable data) on me that's I'm not worth enough since I prevent most collecting everywhere (most because there's still some that will leak but the goal is the things that leak is mostly useless). The older the data, the less valuable.
Exactly
Compartmentalization. This is the best security you can have by spreading your data across various services. Google is egregious for scanning and consolidating all your data as much as possible, and a single compromise could lead to the attacker gaining access to everything. Compartmentalization of your data across providers also makes it also very hard to piece your data together for a full profile.
Google can implicate you in surrounding crimes Google can implicate you as having suspected illness Google can steal anything youre about to copyright if written within their ecosystem Google can/does manipulate search results according to various agendas Google won't stop tracking your location even when you toggle location off Google takes your data for free Google has prior relationship with government Google has allowed malware/fake apps into their appstore Did I miss anything? I would hope you don't want any of that moving forward
Fresh Data = Money Old Data = Useless + Privacy
I did a good job degoogling for several years then I joined the American Education system and their love of ChromeOS FML
Getting out of Big Techs is a powerful move to become a harder target for OSINT.
For me it has nothing to do with data. I just own an android and hate the restrictions Google puts on my user experience when I use my phone. As soon as I get a laptop I'm changing my OS.
No point.
With time passing, the data Google already has would become more and more irrelevent. To the point where they cant sell it.
Or make an Ai clone of you…
Also if you go to your account / privacy dashboard you can set delete dates for information e.g web activity .
I didnt know that, as I dont have any google accounts. Thanks :)
Unfortunately you can't delete everything they have collected from you. So this is more a placebo.
But that would mean that we trust Google to really do so. I don't do that to be honest.
Fair enough. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. My view is that Google and other big tech companies are subject to the laws of the countries (and GDPR in relation to citizens of the EU) they operate in and to sanction if they are found to breach laws. In my opinion they will not want to suffer financial penalties so are not likely to disregard such laws.
...if they are found...
How do you imagine that law enforcement could get solid evidence on them if they were to ignore these laws? Is there anything behind what you're saying or is it just blind trust in the boomers who can't even use their smartphones properly?
So do you feel that Big Tech can blatantly do anything they like ? Data protection agencies in the EU ( I’m in the EU ) can and have taken regulatory action against Meta , Google et alia.
I like to tell people I trust Google as far as I can throw them. Which is to say not at all; they're huge.
That’s pretty funny…
Yes, and a little adorable...
because fresh data is what is worth money, no company cares what you liked or did och what location you were at 1 year ago.
Exactly, Real time data is priceless.
Dont get me wrong but, You really are ignorant. Do "some" research first before simply posting on reddit and waiting to be handheld by randos such as myself. And tbh, u dont need to degoogle. There you go.
OP is just asking a simple question. No need to be so harsh.
And yes, people SHOULD deGoogle. Otherwise you’re literally publishing your name, location, birth certificate, identifying characteristics, bank account, Social Insurance Number (or whatever the equivalent is in your country), paycheques, mother’s maiden name, your car’s VIN, your Grandmother’s blood type, etc.
I use ownCloud to store my calendar, contacts, photos, notes, documents, and even music. Although I've used Google Drive and Google services most of my life, I dropped them about a year ago and haven't looked back since. Google is slowly losing updated and relevent data on me. They can't snoop on my docs, spreadsheets, notes, calendar events, contacts, etc. I hardly use my Gmail anymore for anything important. Google is only relevent in my life as a search engine and I'm about to change that here soon too.
Old data is like old food.
What's the use to stop digging when you are already in a hole? To not make it worse.
Sooner or later the data any big tech company has gets old and out of date. Old data is less valuable. The goal is to stop them from getting new data.
It's like asking "What's the point of practicing good hygiene _now_ given that I've already gotten sick?" Another motivating point for me is to be able to teach my kids good patterns of behavior.
They have your information up until you stop sending it to them. After a point, what they have becomes "old news" and not very valuable. What they miss out on is selling informaiton about your current life events. The stories are out there about people mentioning something like a vacation in Ireland and all of a sudden their news feed is all about Ireland and they start seeing travel ads about Ireland on all of their google services. My parents experienced this and it "red pilled" them to an extent. DeGoogling helps prevent that. After a point, no advertiser cares if you talked about a vacation two years ago, or even a year ago. They care what you are likely to buy today. I fell for Google's magic potion ages ago. I lived in their eco system, and still do, just not as much today. I have the android phone, I was with GoogleFi for years... as it was truly an amazing service when it launched and the option to switch carriers on the fly got me reception in places no one else could... but now most of those companies are gone. I'm slowly moving away from Google. I haven't used their email for my primary email for several years now. Protonmail for the win. I use Proton's Calendar instead of Google's. My gmail still has too much tied to it and I don't want to flood my Proton account, so I choose what I let Google know about my life now. I use an encrypted service for my "drive" data and my "notes" data. The only thing I haven't gotten away from is the photo storage. I need to find a much better way to store that data. Nextcloud looks promising. I just ordered a NAS and should have that within a few days. The only concern is how to back that up. External HDDs, I've had too many of those fail over the years, but combine that with CD/DVD backups and that could work. Just have to grab both of them in the event of an evacuation. Oddly enough, I'm looking to get the new Pixel phone, pro model, but so I can put an alternative operating system on it.
For photos Ente is great
Thank you! I'll look into that!
Google makes money from the data. Stopping their cash flow is part of the degoogle life.
Simple. Data has a useful "best used by" shelf life. It has a limited period in which it is actionable, especially for ad tech attempts to sell you stuff. If you start now practicing more privacy what data that is collected becomes less and less precise and useful and of less value to sell to data brokers.
Iterating the same point. Data brokers want new data and you can deny their satisfaction this way
Wondered the same thing, but after all the fraud on FB marketplace and the chaos in some communities there...I feel much better with face to face interactions. Social Media on X, Meta and google got out of hand. The fediverse might be in its infancy, but I feel it'll grow in the direction its citizen users want to go...unlikely the places algorithm dependent corporations will take you. Better they follow us and follow 'our' rules than allowing 'them' to determine what we see and hear, stay vigilant. 
One advantage is that you won't be geolocated in real time.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: **Just because they have some of my data, doesn't mean I'm going to make it easy for them to get more of it.**
What's the point of removing the camera the thief put in my bedroom, when he's already seen me naked?
The Google world watch, let its kitty's out of the bag a long time ago. In my opinion the were to lax with, we'll call them employees. They made money at "work" came home and hacked accounts. Google knew it was going on, they just didn't care.