Privacy is a topic I take seriously, especially as it relates to the data we generate and share online. I’m sure that I come across as paranoid at times, if not all the time, with my refusal to engage in social media and my concerns over browser usage and the sites I frequent while online. Yes, maybe I can take it to the extreme, but the more I read about how companies, governments, and the powers that be use our data, I worry that I may not be taking it seriously enough.

It’s articles like this one that showed up in my feed from Smashing Magazine, Pushing Back Against Privacy Infringement on the Web, that raises online privacy warning flags for me. Our personal data is being used, sometimes for our benefit, sometimes against us, and always for the benefit and profit of the companies that collect, analyze and trade it.

The article is a short read and provides a good overview on the importance of privacy on the internet. But it was the mentions in the further reading that intrigued me. I wanted to go deeper into why privacy is important, which led me to reading Privacy Is Power: Why And How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data by Carissa Veliz.