Why Am I Paranoid, You Say?

Technology has advanced to a point I could only have dreamed of as a child. Have you seen the graphics in video games lately? Zero to 60 miles per hour in under two seconds? Communicating with anyone around the world at the touch of a button? It's incredible, to say the least. But every time I grab the TV remote and decline the terms of service, my family watches in confusion. I don't usually have the words to explain my paranoia to them, but let me try.

I would love to have all the features enabled on all my devices.

I would love to have Siri on my phone.

I would love to have Alexa control the lighting in my house and play music on command.

I would love to own an electric car with over-the-air updates.

I would love to log in with my Google account everywhere.

I would love to sign up for your newsletter.

I would love to try the free trial.

I would love to load all my credit cards onto my phone.

I would love all of that.

But I can't. I don't get to do these things because I have control over none of them. When I was a kid, I imagined that behind the wild technologies of the future there would be software and hardware, pure and simple. Now that we have the tech, I can say that what I failed to see was that behind every product, there is a company. And these companies are salivating for data.

If you're like me, you have dozens of apps on your phone. You can't fit them all on the home screen, so you use a launcher to find the ones you don't open every day. Sometimes, because I have so many, I scroll up and down and still can't find what I'm looking for. Luckily, on most Android phones, there's a search bar at the top to help. But the moment I tap it, a notification pops up asking me to agree to terms and conditions just to use the search. Of course I won't do that.

Most people have Siri enabled on their iPhone and never think twice about it. Apple has run several ads touting its privacy-first approach. Yet Apple settled a class action lawsuit last year claiming that Siri had violated users' privacy, to the tune of $95 million.

I can't trust any of these companies with my information. They will lose it, or they will sell it. Using Alexa or Google Assistant is no different from using Siri. It's having a microphone in your home that's controlled by a third party.

As enthusiastic as I am about electric cars, I didn't see the always-connected aspect coming. I've always assumed that when I pay for something, it belongs to me. But when an automaker can make decisions about your car while it sits in your garage, I'd rather have a dumb car. Unfortunately, it's no longer limited to electric vehicles. Nearly all modern cars now push some form of subscription service on their customers.

Have you ever been locked out of your Google account? One day I picked up my phone and, for some reason, my location was set to Vietnam. A few minutes later, I lost access to my Google account. It's one thing to lose access to your email or files in Drive. But when you've used Google to log in to other websites, you're suddenly locked out of those too. Effectively, you're locked out of the internet.

I was lucky my account was restored the same day, apparently there were several login attempts from Vietnam. But my account was back in service just in time for me to mark another Stack Overflow question as a duplicate.

I don't sign up for services with my real email just to try a free trial, because even when I decide not to continue, the emails keep coming.

When my sons were just a few months old, I received a letter in the mail addressed to the baby. It stated that his personal information (name, address, and Social Security number) had been breached. He was still an infant. I had never heard of the company responsible or done any business with them, yet somehow they had managed to lose my child's information.

I would love to not worry about any of this, but it's a constant inconvenience. Whenever I grab the TV remote, I accidentally hit the voice button, and the terms of service remind me that my voice may be shared with third parties.

Technology is amazing when you have some control over it. But when the terms of service can change out from under you without warning, I'll politely decline and keep my tin hat close by. I have so much to hide.

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