Gary Kovacs and his TED talk. What are we going to do about it?

Basically, what he says is: “I am] not even two bites into breakfast, and there are already nearly 25 sites that are tracking me. I have navigated to a total of four.” But the talk is only 6 minutes long, and it’s worth listening to it.

So what are we going to do about it?

First, we can install Collusion, if we use Mozilla Firefox. But I don’t see how this will solve the problem. We will track the trackers, and then what?

Second, we can consider not doing anything, as this guy, Antonio Regalado, suggests: “Despite the hand-wringing, it’s not so easy to find people who have been hurt by the collection of their personal data.” But before considering this option, I suggest you read this, about some millions of people severely hurt by the collection of their personal data (in an offline environment of a non-democratic regime, but still collection of the personal data).

Third, we can simply wait or persuade lawmakers to enforce proper privacy laws.

In conclusion, there’s not much we can do about it. But it helps being aware of what is actually happening and paying more attention to privacy policies of websites and also to the amount of data we share.