“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” – Noam Chomsky

Reddit turned 21 this year. I was a loyal user for many of those years and used it as a place to connect with people over shared interests/obsessions, find answers to oddly specific problems, and curate a feed of interests. Then, in 2021, I deleted my decade-old account…but that’s a story for another day. This is the story of why I returned to Reddit in October 2025 with a brand-new account, how I ended up permanently banned just 11 days later, and what the whole experience taught me about true power.

Just before incorporating My Data Union in October 2025, I rejoined Reddit to research how people think and talk about their data. My goal was to gauge people’s awareness of how much value they create and give away for free. So I created u/MyDataUnion account on October 8^th and made about 43 comments and a 4 posts over the next 11 days. I posted these three questions, submitted in r/AskReddit:

1. Tile bluetooth tracker users, how did you react when you learned the parent company (Life360) sells your location data?
2. What trivial thing is shockingly valuable?
3. Your data companies take from you is worth at least $700 per year, what would you spend that money on if you could get it?

Despite the initial warm reception and productive conversation sparked by the questions, every single post was removed. Shortly after and without explanation, the account was banned across the site. After my 20+ appeals and messages went unanswered, I assumed I screwed up and was almost ready to move on. But because I have some sort of obsession that doesn’t allow me to simply move on from things like this, I kept digging for clues.

The digging led me to a dusty corner of the account settings where you can ask Reddit for a copy of everything it keeps about you. What I discovered rewarded my inner skeptic.

On Reddit’s platform, there are only three people who can delete a comment or post: the author, the subreddit’s moderator, or Reddit’s internal team. A subreddit moderator’s actions are contained within one subreddit and do not impact the user’s activities in different subreddits. A sitewide suspension is issued exclusively by Reddit’s own team, and it’s their policy to inform users why the ban was issued.^[1]

The post where I cited a dollar figure got the strangest treatment of all. Before anyone could see it, the post landed on my profile page instead of r/AskReddit, effectively invisible because my account was banned very shortly afterward. A question about what your data is worth, asked in a soundproof room.

And that’s not all, each comment I left in different subreddits also vanished. My comments were all squarely focused on sharing education and helpful links to policies, lawsuits, and public filings pertaining to various companies being discussed in a thread.

So why was I really banned from the site? Reddit never responded to any of my formal appeals or mod messages, and based on my account’s data files, Reddit never bothered to record my inquiries. I have theories drawn from the company’s public documents and its CEO Steven Huffman’s words to investors. Based on my research of Reddit’s public filings and disclosures, I believe my account was banned because the questions I asked, and the receipts I brought, conflicted with Reddit’s financial incentives.

Following the money

What separates me from a typical Reddit user is my expertise in the financial markets and ability to perform in-depth research about companies. For publicly traded companies, such as Reddit, the first step is to listen to its executives speak during its quarterly earnings calls. It’s essential for current and prospective investors to learn what’s going on inside the company and how Reddit’s executives think about the business. The following quotes from Huffman during recent earnings calls succinctly summarized what he thinks about users and the content they generate:

“Reddit’s conversations are like oil for the modern Internet, a foundational resource powering the next generation of technology.”

Reddit’s “deeply engaged users who come to Reddit for high-intent uses, authentic recommendations, and answers to questions” are “Reddit’s raw materials.”

“Our goal is to maximize the value return to Reddit.”

Putting my investor cap on, I hear Huffman saying he treats Reddit’s users like commodities, objects that can be owned and controlled. Like an oil executive, he wants to lower the cost of raw materials as much as possible to maximize profits, and paying people $0 for their valuable property is a great price for Reddit! And giving people no say over how Reddit monetizes people’s data allows Reddit to sell user data to whomever they can, including companies and governments. I perceive Huffman and the management team as people who will squeeze Reddit’s users as hard as possible to hit Reddit’s growth projections. Even if it’s at the expense of the very people producing the data.

Structuring a business to treat people like raw materials is a foundational mistake at best, exploitation at worst. The morality of treating people like property aside, true raw materials, like oil, cannot get up and walk away. It sits underground and cannot make demands. Google did not pay Reddit $60m for having a cute avatar in their logo.^[2] OpenAI didn’t pay Reddit $70m because Sam Altman was its CEO for four days.^[3],^[4] They paid to access a place where real people show up and write something worth knowing. Reddit’s entire value proposition to its customers (and investors) is what users bring to the table. If the users walked away, they would migrate to a new place, and Reddit would have nothing to sell. Conversely, Reddit cannot walk away from its users under any circumstance.

I cannot overstate how much leverage users have over Reddit in this relationship.

Most users don’t see the world through the eyes of a skeptical investor who really loves to find inconvenient truths. I see Reddit’s platform as the actual commodity, and its users as the ones who should be receiving the lion’s share of the profits. Once that view becomes shared knowledge and users make their demands known, people can get treated equitably.

Instead, the profits made from the users’ data are exclusively captured by Reddit. In 2023, that math worked out well for Huffman in particular; Huffman’s total compensation was $193 million, nearly all of it stock, on a $341,346 salary.^[5] His own explanation: “If the company does well, I will do well. If the company does not do well, I don’t either.” Reddit’s revenues have nearly tripled since then. Meanwhile, Reddit users got no say over how their data was used and received no money when it was licensed away.

So how does this happen? Fragmentation. People cannot solve a problem they cannot discuss. Discreetly silencing discussion that could undermine a company’s leverage is a means to that end. Reddit’s team seems to ban those who dare talk about the concept of users controlling and monetizing their own data. Huffman needs his “raw materials” not to act like that. Because if they did, investors would question Huffman’s story and Reddit’s stock price.

As Frederick Douglass said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” People hold a significant amount of leverage over powerful companies like Reddit, but don’t know it and need help wielding their advantage. My next article will discuss what can happen if people do not seize the opportunity to take the reins and how they can do it sooner and easier than they think.

That’s not a serious way of doing business and you deserve better. To highlight the absurdity, I did the math on what “personal responsibility” requires. Once you see the number, you’ll understand this was never a job for one person.

So let’s give the job to Paula for a week.

One week with Paula

Paula is not careless. She locks her doors. She reads her mail. She checks her bank statements. By every normal standard, Paula is a responsible adult.

Monday. Paula’s phone prompts her to accept updated terms from Google before she can check her email. She taps ‘I Agree,’ because the alternative is not having access to her email. That agreement, Terms of Service + Privacy Policy, runs about 11,000 words. Forty-five minutes of reading, if she’d read it. She also has accounts with Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft too, plus a Visa in her wallet, and she recently tried one of the big AI assistants. Let’s call it eight relationships like this, totaling 88,000 words of legalese homework.

Tuesday. Paula’s doctor moved to a new patient portal. She creates an account between meetings, hastily tapping ‘I Accept’ and refills a prescription in the pharmacy’s app. Her bank also emailed to say it updated its terms, which was routed to her spam folder. She ignores the email, and her bank interprets her silence as an agreement to the new terms. Her health insurer, hospital portal, bank, credit card, and pharmacy, five relationships with documents totaling 9,000 words each. 45,000 words on Tuesday. Running total: 133,000 words.

Wednesday. Paula’s new TV arrives today. It’s a regular TV with a screen and a cable …except this TV’s terms require Paula to get her houseguests’ consent to being recorded, or she will be in violation of wiretapping laws.^[1] She’s expected to have a strange legal conversation with anyone else in her home. Paula’s TV watches what she watches.^[2] Her car collects whatever it can access.^[3] And finally, then the smartwatch, the router, the doorbell, and Windows itself, all have its own terms about what it collects from everything she does on the machine. Call it seven devices and systems at 8,000 words apiece. 56,000 words. Running total: 189,000.

Thursday through Sunday. App time! Paula has about fifty of them from companies that aren’t from the tech giants, like the parking app, her kid’s soccer league app, the meditation app, the airline, and the grocery store’s loyalty program. Each one comes with its own terms and privacy policy, say 7,000 words per app. 350,000 words. Final total: 539,000.

Half a million words

Let’s be fair to Paula and assume she reads at the average adult pace of about 240 words per minute and never needs a legalese sentence explained to her. Reading what she agreed to, just once, would take her 37 hours. For scale, War and Peace is 587,000 words. From just a week’s worth of activity, Paula’s expected to decipher a Tolstoy novel written by lawyers. Immediately.

But Paula is diligent, and perhaps a touch masochistic. She read it all…so now what?

1. The things she read can be changed at any moment, at each company’s discretion, forcing her to repeat this process 2-3 times per year, per service.
2. When Paula objects to certain portions for the apps and services she cares most about, no one cares. She has no one to contact to make her own conditions. Instead, she’s forced into an all-or-nothing transaction.

Nobody reads these agreements, and the system is designed around that fact. Every “I Agree” Paula tapped was manufactured consent, a false choice between accepting unread terms and living without email, a doctor, a bank, or a job.

Consent didn’t die because people got lazy. It died because it was scaled past the point where a human being could ever give it.

We already know what to do when the paperwork outgrows the person

In every other area of Paula’s life where the documents got too complex and the counterparty too powerful, nobody expects her to go it alone. Paula doesn’t read investment prospectuses; her retirement plan has a manager with obligations to her. If she sold a house, an agent would work the deal. If she were sued, a lawyer would speak for her. Athletes don’t negotiate their own contracts, and neither do actors. As I’ve argued in Your Data Needs An Agent, everyone who creates value gets representation to work for them. For some reason, the exception has been the people generating the data economy’s lifeblood.

Companies could never get away with treating another company like this.

When the fragmented briefly organize, they win

Don’t take it on faith that the other side of the table would ever budge. Look at what disorganized users, with no mandate and no plan, have already done.

In 2012, Instagram’s new terms implied user photos could appear in ads. The public revolt was loud enough that Instagram reversed the language within days and apologized.^[4] In 2021, WhatsApp pushed a privacy policy expanding data sharing with Meta, and tens of millions of people downloaded Signal and Telegram within weeks. WhatsApp delayed the rollout and spent months trying to win back trust. In 2023, Unity announced a retroactive fee on game developers, who organized a boycott so fast the plan was scrapped and the CEO was out within a month. That same year, Reddit’s new API terms gutted the tools communities relied on, so volunteer moderators took thousands of communities dark. In 2024, Adobe’s terms hinted that customers’ work could feed AI training. Creative professionals erupted, and Adobe rewrote its terms in plain language.

Companies do not have morals, and their actions are determined by game theory to maximize profits over all else. Every one of those “wins” by people was improvised, and companies quickly folded to gain favorable press and extinguish a fire. But the moment the outrage evaporated, most companies reintroduced similar terms, under the radar.

Wildcat strikes win battles. Organized blocs win wars.

What’s coming

Your data has value, I want to help you manage it better. To begin, I want to show you what your data’s worth, who’s taking it for free, and how to stop them from taking it.

Right now, at no cost to you, you can check out my tool, App Score. I read, score, and track the terms of the apps you care about so your 37 hours becomes a glance.

But the reading was only ever half the job. The other half is the mandate, a formal way to put someone on your side of the table. That piece is in the works right now, but I’ll tell you this much: It fits on one page. It’s written to be read once and understood. And it’s free, because you shouldn’t be charged to fix a problem you didn’t create.

Paula was never going to read half a million words. Neither are you. The ask was impossible from the start, and a system built on an impossible ask is really built on your surrender.

Join the newsletter and be first in line when it’s ready.

This quarter really flew by! I wanted to take a moment to share with you the wonderful progress we’ve made at My Data Union. Those of you who signed up for this newsletter are among my earliest supporters, and I sincerely thank you for your encouragement, wisdom, and love. It means the world to me.

The Daylight platform

Randy Bator, our CTO, and I made progress towards the goal of operating a trusted environment where people can manage their data with the release of the ‘Daylight’ platform, the destination for the tools we publish. Coming from investment land, I envision it like a TD Ameritrade or similar investment custodian platform that helps people manage their traditional, investable property, such as stocks and bonds. The first step is for people to understand what they own, what it’s worth, who’s taking it for free, and how they can protect their property.

The first two tools in beta version of ‘Daylight’ are ‘App Score’ and ‘Portfolio Score.’ App Score defines scores for applications based on how much agency people have when using an app, coupled with an in-depth report of what’s going on under the hood. We take that information, combine it with my interpretation of the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and offer people an inventory list and valuation of the data being extracted from them. I want people to think of it as a nutrition label for their apps. There’s nothing like it on the market today.

Portfolio Score allows people to combine nutrition labels from all their apps into one single macronutrient report. When combined, the data tells a more comprehensive story about the person and the identity the data economy prescribes them. It is also meant to red flag invasive apps that the person may not know are on their device.

Both tools went through a closed beta test in May, and the responses were very encouraging. A sincere thank you to those who participated! You’ll see changes roll out over the course of the year. If you haven’t done so already, please check it out at mydataunion.tools and let me know what you think 😊.

Do it for the ‘gram

The personal IG account (@therealryanbroderick) hopped on the content train this quarter. The first campaign targets FIFA World Cup goers who downloaded the spyware app FIFA published and might like to know what their app is collecting, who FIFA and its partners sell their data to, and how to stop (some of) the collection. Over the past thirty days, the nine reels generated about 8.3k views and touched about 4.1k unique accounts. Considering this account is new with fewer than 100 followers, I am content with this reach and have a plan to keep consistently posting. If you haven’t already, please follow along on that channel. The three most impactful ways to appease the resident algo-God are to: 1) watch the reels as long as you can; 2) use the “share” button to repost or DM the content; and 3) like the content.

Many thanks to Michael Casimir (@mikecasimirviola), a man I’m proud to call a lifelong friend, who has been extremely helpful by teaching me this new skillset. Taking a dive into the unknown is easier when you’re surrounded by immensely talented people like Mike.

Please give Sara a big hug next time you see her; she’s seen our living room get consumed by a large green screen, filming equipment, and a soon-to-be-retired PC that sounds like a ticking bomb. You’d never know about the invasion based on her unrelenting encouragement for My Data Union and support for me. Te quiero muchísimo, mi amor.

Forming the band

The hardest parts of this venture are driving awareness and planting a rally flag. I’m convinced the content we publish on socials, which is derived from the articles published on MyDataUnion.com, will address the awareness part of the equation. Since I am still playing catchup with my socials and building a content backlog, new content on the site was slow in the second quarter. Nevertheless, there was great new content! Such as:

• How to disguise your email address with Apple: Your email address is a silent barcode that lets data brokers stitch your identity together across every service you touch; this shows you how to use Apple’s free masking tools to hand out a different disposable address every time.
• What is “personalization”?: “Personalization” is the industry’s friendliest-sounding word, and this pulls back the curtain on how it often just means surveillance pricing, like the airline that charged one traveler $230 more based on what it knew about them.
• 4 steps to opt out of ChatGPT’s ad business: You were quietly opted into ChatGPT’s new ad business without anyone asking; here are four steps to opt back out, on any device.
• What kind of party is this, anyway? Zero, first, and third-party, explained: The industry hides how it profits from you behind confusing jargon, so this decodes zero-, first-, and third-party data in plain English so you can see exactly when your information changes hands.
• Shining Daylight on the FIFA World Cup app: Our first Daylight case study: the official FIFA World Cup app hands your government ID, precise location, and demographics to more than 25 companies quietly embedded inside it. Here’s how to shut most of that pipeline off.

Creating a convincing rally flag is the next critical step. Companies don’t listen to 10 users with 10 different opinions…but are forced to when 10k users speak with one voice. Like a group of shareholders, labor union, or talent agency, negotiating leverage is created by forming a bloc of like-minded people and pushing for the same things that benefit them all. The plan is to first gather many people clearly under the My Data Union umbrella and then put that collective weight to work on their behalf. That means negotiating for better terms, enforcing those terms, coordinating mass opt-outs and deletion requests, and ultimately opening a path for members to license some of their data on their own terms and get paid for it. This is the part of the journey I am most excited about because it puts my activist investor experience and crankiness to good use 😊. I’m excited to share that we are working on a creative call to action in the second half of 2026. Stay tuned!

…

Thank you for being here and showing your support for me and what we’re building at My Data Union. I believe, with every ounce of my body, that people must have representation in a market that’s exploiting them. Until they have a seat at the table, the exploitation will never stop. The velocity increases exponentially as new AI tools hit the market to make computing massive quantities of data a cinch. We must solve for this problem now or it’ll never happen.

Sincerely and with gratitude,

Ryan Broderick

In loving memory of Uncle Peter Broderick. Gone too soon. Never forgotten.

Before we dig in, ask yourself these questions:

1. What data does the app take from me, and what’s it worth?
2. What companies have their hands on my data?
3. How can my data be used during and after the game?

Data taken

What exactly can FIFA and the other companies behind the event take from you? As shown in Daylight’s first section, the three most important things are:

1. Precise location. Not just your city, but your exact spot. At a stadium or fan zone, that means how long you spent at the gates, concession stands, sponsor booths, and even the bathroom. Outside the stadium, it can be used to figure out where you are staying, how you get to the stadium, and places of interest before or after the game.
2. Persistent identification. Your advertising ID and device ID are the codes that can tie this app to the same “you” everywhere else online. Your government ID can tie these profiles to your offline life. This is the thread that turns scattered data into a single, comprehensive profile.
3. Demographic data. Age range, income range, gender, country, and “inferences” assumed about you. Advertisers pay a premium for this when attached to an ID, because it tells them not just what you did, but who you are.

FIFA and its partners don’t just want your ticket money. They want a permanent, sellable profile of who you are to use for their own purposes. So, what’s it worth to them? About $600 a year, and you’ll never see a cent of it.

Companies hiding in the app

Based on my own analysis and several trusted open-sources, I count more than 20 different companies that are quietly embedded into the FIFA World Cup app.^[1] If you want to see the complete list of companies I found hiding in the app, go to the ‘Trackers in the app’ section.

The big ones you probably expected are in there, such as Amazon, Google, Meta, and TikTok. There are also numerous companies from all over the world I’d never heard of before, such as:

• Tapad – An identity-tracking company that monitors where you go, online and offline. It’s owned by Experian, one of the three big credit bureaus behind your FICO score and the financial data lenders use to judge you.
• Persona.ly – An advertising and identity-tracking company specializing in “user acquisition” (getting apps installed through targeted ads). By its own description, it’s headquartered in Israel with offices in Korea, Japan, Russia, and China, countries far outside the reach of US privacy law.

According to the FIFA World Cup app’s privacy policy, the companies operating the app have a lot of leeway with what they can do with your data and who they can share it with.^[2] I highlight the most important ones for you in the ‘Terms Red Flags’ section. For example, FIFA and the app can take your data from third-parties (like Meta, Google, etc.), combine it, and share with even more third-parties. When I clicked the link to see which companies FIFA partners with, it brought me to this page:

Where your data goes after the game

The final whistle does not stop FIFA and its partners from using your data. As I highlight in Daylight’s ‘Terms Red Flags’ section, here are three things the app’s privacy policy allows:

1. The organizers can keep your data as long as they want. The policy says data is retained “as long as needed or permitted,” on their criteria, not yours. Deleting the app does not cut them off; the data they already collected stays put until you file a formal deletion request.
2. They sell it. The policy states, in its own words, that they sell personal information as defined under California law. Your profile is shared with Endeavor, FIFA, Soccer United Marketing, and Major League Soccer, each of which then uses it under their own rules and can share it with whoever they want.
3. It travels. Your data is stored and processed across the US, UK, and Europe, handled by staff outside your country, and can be disclosed to government authorities on request in any of the countries it touches.

What to do next

Below are 6 things you can do to protect yourself in less than five minutes. Delete your Advertising ID.

1. Disable location sharing.
2. Turn off app personalization.
3. Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning.
4. After the game, delete your FIFA ID and data.
5. Submit a formal data deletion request.^[3]

The Daylight tool provides step-by-step instructions for both iOS and Android, and additional things you can do to protect what you own. Create an account and start managing your data with intention.

Your data fuels a trillion-dollar industry most companies would prefer you keep forfeiting your valuable data without resistance so they can monetize it for themselves. You need someone in your corner and My Data Union is the representation you deserve.

Zero-party data: Information you voluntarily provide

Marco recently moved into a friendly neighborhood. Excited to meet his new next-door neighbor, Karen, Marco introduced himself. During their conversation, he mentioned a few things about himself, like he has two kids and a pit bull named Tinkerbell, he works from home on Fridays, and he drives 2 hours each way to work. Normal pleasantries between neighbors that mutually benefit by keeping in each other’s good graces.

Zero-party data is the stuff you knowingly, voluntarily give to a company, like Marco telling Karen about his kids and Tinkerbell. The defining trait of zero-party data is intent. You know you’re sharing, and you chose to do it. It’s highly valued in the data economy because the data comes straight from the source, is usually authentic, and is legally safe to use.

In the data economy, these are traditionally the “About me” prompts you complete, reviews or comments you leave, and the surveys you complete. The asks seem reasonable, sometimes incessant, and can often be mandatory to use an app or service. Unless you have a very good reason to trust the company receiving this data, consider declining them all or making a game of lying on them. Just because a company is asking for something does not mean you MUST answer it with a hand on the Bible.

First-party data: Things a company observes about you

Following their exchange, Karen decided she wanted to learn more about her new neighbor and started a diary of everything she observed about Marco and his family. She could easily figure when Marco’s family arrived home by logging when the living room lights turned on, that Marco’s wife tended to her flowers five days a week andon most Friday evenings, she spotted Marco sparking up a cigar and sipping a drink on the back patio. Karen could also infer things about Marco’s lifestyle based on the types of cars she observed parked in Marco’s driveway, the number of Amazon Prime deliveries the family received each week, and who else in the neighborhood spent time at Marco’s house.

First-party data is what a company collects about you by watching you from their own property or product. Karen’s decision to create a diary about Marco based on things she saw from her own property is an example of how first-party data is collected in the data economy. In the data economy, this is the streaming service tracking where you are watching from, the store app logging what and when you make a purchase, and the social media site mapping your friends and family network. This type of data generally stays under the control of the company observing you, which sets the rules over how it gets used. Sometimes it work in your favor, like a neighbor watering your plants while the family’s away. Sometimes it works against you, like Karen telling Marco’s employer she saw him with a cigar and a drink on the patio at 3pm last Friday.

Stopping first-party collection requires a little bit of creativity.

Third-party data: What random companies collected about you

A diary of her own observations wasn’t enough for Karen. She wanted to know everything Marco’s family did once they left the neighborhood. To make Marco’s family easy to identify, Karen combined the data provided by Marco (zero-party data) and her logs (first-party data) and gave it to private investigators. The PI’s hid near the plant nursery and recorded what Marco’s wife purchased and when. They found Marco’s car at the local grocery store, documented each item Marco browsed and purchased, and followed Marco to his doctor’s appointment. This went on for years and continued after Marco and his family moved to a new home. Even after Karen stopped using the private investigators, all of Marco’s data stayed with the private investigators who could do whatever they wanted with it.

Third-party data is information about you collected by companies you’ve never met, such as data brokers and advertising technology companies. They basically stamp a barcode on you; they slyly inject their trackers directly into the apps and services to take your data, and sell it to anyone willing to pay. They do all this without getting your consent and compensating you for using the property you created.

How to protect your data

Knowing how companies take your property is one thing. Doing something about is another. Here are a few things you can do to make it difficult for companies to monetize your data without your permission:

Limit what companies can observe

1. The first step is at sign-up; do not submit an email address you use elsewhere. Apple’s email-masking, and similar services from others, make this process significantly easier than trying to manage a thousand different email addresses yourself.
2. Never supply your phone number or address unless you absolutely must do so. Almost every app you’ll use asks for this data but does not require it to run the service. Even if the prompt seems like you need to give this data, odds are it is not needed. Decline or consider submitting a fake number.
3. Disable location sharing with the app. Location data is very valuable; used to track you in the real and digital world. Most apps do not need it…although that won’t stop them from asking!
4. Deny access to your contacts.
   Android: Settings -> Security & privacy -> Privacy controls -> Permission manager -> Contacts and accounts; or
   iOS: Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Contacts

Make yourself harder to track

1. Delete your device’s Advertising ID. This is the primary barcode used to track you around the internet.
2. Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) from a reputable company to access the app or service. Like an Advertising ID, your IP address functions like a license plate for your device and allows others to track where you go. A VPN conceals this data.
3. Turn off personalization on your device.
   Android: Settings -> Security & privacy -> More security & privacy; or
   iOS: Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Apple Advertising
4. Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning. Scanning allows companies to precisely locate physically where your device is located without GPS.
   Android: Settings -> Location -> Location services; or
   iOS: Settings -> Location -> Location services -> System Services -> Networking & Wireless toggle

How to break the wheel

Companies have grown WAY too comfortable taking what’s yours and profiting from it without your consent. The issue is not black and white and requires treating you like a valuable stakeholder. Sometimes exchanging your data for a service works in your favor, like when your data is used to show you content about a topic you like, receive relevant information about products you’re searching, and make the products you use better. Other times it’s used against you, like when a store identifies you as a new parent and shows you higher-priced baby thermometers, a location-tracking company sells your driving data that increases your insurance rates, and an airline uses your data to set ticket prices.^[1][2][3]

It doesn’t have to work this way. You need a seat at the table to control how your data can be used.

The industry will never treat you like a valuable owner; it’s more profitable for them to take your property instead. To make them take you seriously, you can cut off access to your data and use collective representation to negotiate for terms that benefit you. My Data Union exists to fight for you in an industry that ignores what you want. Let’s flip the script; I’ll show you options you didn’t know you had, listen to what you want, and execute on your behalf.

On April 30, 2026, ChatGPT users received, for the second time in thirty days, an email from OpenAI saying their privacy policy was updated. According to the new policy, OpenAI now allows itself to share your data with marketing partners. Unless you have taken the steps to opt out, your ChatGPT data is being shared by default. While it does not seem like much, this is a telltale sign the company believes it can nudge users into relinquishing more control over their valuable data. I firmly believe automatically signing people up for things that discreetly take their property is a violation of their rights. The article below explains what a privacy policy does, why it matters, and how you can regain your agency as a ChatGPT user.

What privacy policies are supposed to do

A privacy policy is a company’s public statement of what it does with your data. It’s not a hardened contract as companies write the rules themselves without your input and reserve the right to change them at any time. As we covered in What is “personalization”?, companies use vague language to give themselves wiggle room to operate however they like.

Since companies aren’t usually forthright about what changed and why, I have built tools to make changes easier to spot. When a company stops promising not to do something, it’s usually because they’re about to start doing it.

What OpenAI changed

1. A reversal. Until April 30, 2026, OpenAI’s privacy policy explicitly stated it did not share user data for “cross-context behavioral advertising” and did not process data for “targeted advertising.” The new policy confirms OpenAI now does both.
2. A new data flow. The policy added a new category of data recipient: “marketing partners who are not service providers.” In plain English, those are advertising technology companies that receive your data, use it for their own purposes, and have their own terms of service.
3. A new default. All of this happens automatically, and you are opted in until you explicitly remove yourself.

This is a textbook default flip. Companies know that most users never change defaults, which means flipping a default does the work of “consent” without anyone having to consciously consent. I covered this pattern in detail in The Death of Consent: Automatic Opt Ins.

In the data economy, terms and policies drift away from the consumer. Once a company allows advertising technology companies that you’ve never heard of to take your data, your agency evaporates. Not long ago, the largest social media platforms did not collect data about their users. Not the case today. OpenAI’s update is the next step along the same path and today’s terms are the best you’ll ever have…until they meet healthy pushback from consumers.

The problem is not with advertising. Targeted advertisements (the advertisements you see based on your interests) can be mutually beneficial. The problem is how platforms manufacture “consent” to take whatever they want, without compensation or transparency, and allow suspicious advertising companies to pilfer people’s data.^[1] These distinction matters.

How to opt out

The whole process takes less than two minutes, but is different depending on the platform (iOS, Android, or desktop) and subscription level:

• Android (free)
• Android (paid)
• iOS (free)
• iOS (paid)
• Desktop (free)
• Desktop (paid)

What you can do next

In only two minutes, you closed the door OpenAI just opened. The bigger problem is that you’ll have to do this again for new “features” in ChatGPT, and the same for every other app or service you use. They all quietly roll out changes and force you to play Where’s Waldo to find the new opt out. The default-opt in is the dominant “consent” mechanism of the data economy, and it’s only getting more aggressive.

I created My Data Union because I believe people need more agency in the data economy. It is unreasonable to expect people to monitor hundreds of different contracts that are frequently changing. Companies that want to use your property should be doing business on your terms in a way that benefits you. My Data Union is here to provide people with collective representation to listen to what they want, negotiate on their behalf with other companies, and enforce their property rights in the data economy. This is how people can reshape the data economy so it serves them, not the other way around.

Sign up for the waitlist to join the collective changing the data economy. Get early access to our free tools, plus a weekly newsletter to stay ahead of the next default flip.

How to opt out, step by step

Android (free)

Steps 1 & 2 –

• click the hamburger menu in the top left corner
• then click Settings.

Steps 3 & 4 –

• Make sure Improve the model for everyone is deselected
• Then click Ads controls and deselect Personalize ads.

Android (paid)

Steps 1 & 2 –

• Click the hamburger menu in the top left corner.
• Then your profile icon in the top right corner.

Steps 3 & 4 –

• Scroll down and click Data Controls.
• At the top, make sure Improve the model for everyone is deselected.

iOS (free)

Step 1 & 2 –

• Click on the hamburger menu on the top left.
• Click your profile button on the top right.

Steps 3 & 4 –

• First click Ads controls and deselect Personalize ads.
• Go back and select Data controls and deselect Improve the model for everyone.

iOS (paid)

Steps 1 & 2 –

• Click on the hamburger menu in the top left
• Then click your profile button in the top right.

Steps 3 & 4 –

• Scroll down and click Data controls.
• Deselect Improve model for everyone and Location services.

Desktop (free)

Steps 1 & 2 –

• Click Settings in the bottom left.
• In the popup window, click Ad Controls in the popup window.
• Turn off Personalize ads.

Step 3 –

• Click Data controls in the popup window.
• Turn off Improve the model for everyone.

Desktop (paid)

Steps 1 & 2 –

• Click your account name in the bottom left corner of the home screen
• Click Settings on the popup. In the new popup window,
• Click Data Controls on the left.
• Turn off Improve the model for everyone and make sure Location is also off.
• Then go all the way to the bottom and select Marketing privacy.

Step 3 – deselect Marketing measurement and Personalized marketing.

Your data is your valuable property, and you have the right to decide how it should be used. To understand what ownership looks like, and how you’re being treated in the data economy, an analogy about property we fully understand can help. For example, Marco owns a truck and occasionally lends it to his friend, Pauline, for her errands. In return for his generosity, Pauline brings the truck back with a full tank of gas and picks up a candy bar for him as tokens of her appreciation. It’s a consensual trade and Marco and Pauline come out ahead.

Months go by and the relationship changes. Without Marco’s explicit consent, Pauline monetizes his property by renting the truck to her neighbors and keeps the cash for herself. The neighbors also leave trash in the truck and return it with new dents in the door and no gas in the tank. Pauline took advantage of their relationship, privately profited, and passed the costs to Marco.

Both versions of this trade happen every day in the data economy. The first is a consensual, mutually beneficial arrangement, whereas the second exploits Marco to Pauline’s and her neighbors’ benefit.

Now let’s explore more literal examples of personalization in action. Dolph lives in the suburbs, works in a city, and is a creature of habit. His alarm goes off at 6:45am every morning and he starts his day by listening to music. The morning playlist is automatically queued and includes a couple of new songs the app picked based on what he listened to last week and a few old favorites. Dolph opens his maps app and his commute is already plotted, with a warning about highway traffic and a suggested alternative route. Dolph stops at his regular coffee shop before leaving town and his usual order is pinned to the top of the loyalty app.

That was three instances of personalization before 9 am. Dolph received convenience and knowledge, helping him navigate the day. The music app makes a customer happy to keep him subscribing, the map app learns valuable information about commuting patterns, and the coffee shop serves its regular customer faster. For one morning, the data economy and Dolph are on the same team.

Then Dolph’s phone rings and he learns that his grandmother passed away. The morning’s small conveniences suddenly feel beside the point. Dolph needs to be several hundred miles away by tomorrow.

First, Dolph pulls up an airline website to find plane tickets: $340. Next, Dolph checks social media and messaging apps he and his family use to share information to figure out logistics. Finally, he calls his brother to find a rental car, hotel, and decide who’s picking up whom. Dolph opens the airline website later and learns the same flight is $570. The information collected about Dolph while he coordinated with his family increased the price he was offered by $230.

This type of pricing is not theoretical, it is here. According to a recently filed class-action lawsuit, this type of personalization was allegedly used by JetBlue to surge ticket prices using customer data.

What companies do with your data

Personalization isn’t a legal term. Even personally identifiable information is not much better. Compare that to a term that carries legal weight, such as protected health information. Those words require companies to do specific things, not do others, and provide you with rights. Personalization has no heft. It’s marketing language used to describe whatever a company happens to be doing with your property. When a company says “we use your data to personalize your experience,” they’re saying, “we use your data for stuff and things.” It’s a squishy word that means whatever it needs to mean.

Privacy policies are supposed to define what they can do with your data. Most people’s eyes glaze over and never bother to read them. Rightfully so. People are not expected to read and interpret legal papers they didn’t write at a moment’s notice for every company they deal with. Here are my notes about the airline’s privacy policy and what they say they collect and what they do with it.

Solutions

When it comes to collecting and exchanging your data, companies should be using your contract and not the other way around. You have the right to decide how your property is used. To exercise that right, you need to know what fair terms look like and be given the chance to negotiate. You cannot do that alone, but you can with collective representation that acts on their behalf. This is the longer-term solution and what My Data Union is building. It is a collective that negotiates terms on your behalf, so the next personalization is one you want. Collective representation is the only way to make sure your property gets used on your terms. Sign-up for My Data Union’s waitlist below to join the collective and learn more about the data economy from the newsletter.

To make a meaningful impact now, here are a few tips that take less than five minutes to do. Doing each one makes it harder for companies, like the one above, to use your property against you.

1. How to delete your Ad ID on Android
2. How to delete your Ad ID on iOS
3. How to hide your e-mail address

• Data aggregators, such as the apps you use on a daily basis, diligently collect knowledge about you;
• Data brokers buy these fragments and combine the information from many apps to create your complete Identity Puzzle; and
• Data buyers spend fortunes procuring these complete pictures.

The process happens thousands of times every day without your consent or compensation to you. To make forming your identity puzzle easier, companies religiously hunt for edge and corner pieces that make assembling your puzzle easy. Your email address is one of the most valuable edge pieces in that puzzle. It is semi-permanent, widely distributed, and uniquely yours. Find it once, and you have a reliable thread to pull everything else together. The industry knows this all too well. Companies use your email address as a silent barcode, scanning it every time you interact with a service, linking your behavior across apps, platforms, and devices. Fortunately, this method of taking and monetizing your data can be defeated more easily than you think. In less than five minutes, you can stop companies from collecting it for free and monopolize your data for yourself.

The spam account doesn’t fix it

A lot of people figured out a workaround: create a junk email account and use it for signups. Spam@gmail.com keeps the clutter out of your real inbox, and it feels like a reasonable solution. It isn’t.

The problem is persistence. When you use the same few junk addresses across hundreds of signups, you have not protected your identity, you’ve just given it a nickname. That address still gets linked to your purchases, your location, your browsing behavior, and eventually your real name, the same way your real address would. The spam account saved clutter in your main inbox, but your valuable data escaped for free.

The only way to actually prevent outsiders from stitching your identity together is to use a different email address for every single signup, so that no single address can be used to connect the dots. That is not a practical thing to do on your own; the effort to maintain hundreds of email addresses would be a part-time job.

That is where email masking comes in.

What is email masking?

An email masking service generates a unique, throwaway email address each time a company demands a valid email address to use their service. When an app or service sends emails to that address, it gets forwarded to your real inbox. You receive the message normally, but the app or service never learns your real email address. Most importantly, the throwaway email address they have is useless to data brokers. They cannot link your data to it from multiple apps or services because no other company knows who owns the throwaway email address. Each throwaway email address is a unique identifier tied to one company.

Trustworthy companies have built tools to handle all of this automatically. Apple offers two versions of it depending on whether you pay for iCloud storage. Both are on your iPhone right now.

Free: Sign in with Apple

Apple quietly built a version of email masking into Sign in with Apple — the button that lets you log in to apps and websites with your Apple ID. When you use it, Apple gives you the option to share your real email or hide it behind a masked address that forwards to your inbox.

This costs nothing and requires no subscription. To see which apps already have one of these addresses tied to your account, go to Settings → [Your Name] → Sign in with Apple.

The limitation is that it only works where Apple puts the sign in button. A growing number of apps support it, but the majority of signups you encounter such as newsletters, retail accounts, random one-off services, will not. For those, you need the paid version included with iCloud+.

Going forward, whenever you see the Sign in with Apple option, use it and choose to hide your email.

Paid: Hide My Email

If you pay for any tier of iCloud+ storage to back up your phone, you already have access to Hide My Email. Check by going to Settings → [Your Name] → iCloud. If Hide My Email appears in the list, you have it.

The base iCloud+ plan is $0.99 per month. That is the minimum required if you are not already subscribed.

Unlike the free version, Hide My Email works anywhere. Open any website in Safari, tap an email field, and the option appears above your keyboard. Tap it, and Apple generates a masked address on the spot.

Step 1: Open Settings and tap your name at the top.

Step 2: Tap iCloud, then tap Hide My Email.

Step 3: Tap Create New Address.

Apple generates a random address instantly. Add a label with the name of the service you are signing up for, tap Next, and copy the address. Done.

Step 4: To shut down an address, tap it and select Deactivate Email Address.

Emails sent to that address stop reaching you immediately. If you want to delete it entirely, find it under Inactive Addresses and delete it from there.

This is one piece of a larger problem

Email addresses were created to allow us to communicate with each other for next to no cost. As the internet evolved, email addresses started to be discreetly used as a digital ID, used to monitor people around the web. Email masking is a legitimate and very effective way to protect one of your most valuable identity pieces.

But the industry is always evolving, and your email address is one of several ways companies try to track and profile you without your knowledge or consent.

Protecting your email address is just the beginning. My Data Union is building the platform for consumers to take control over their entire digital footprint, get paid when companies want access to it, and protect themselves from unwanted monitoring. The data economy generates trillions of dollars off you. It’s time you got a cut. Your data, your terms.

Join the waitlist below.

Scattered knowledge is when everyone individually knows something is wrong, but each person holds that knowledge alone. You know… The person next to you knows…but neither person is certain what the other knows, so it’s very difficult to expand on this knowledge to make a permanent change.

On the other hand, shared knowledge is something everybody knows that everybody knows. People, companies, and countries alike use shared knowledge as the foundation to build a better or fairer society.

It’s fascinating to watch how ideas transition from scattered knowledge to shared knowledge. Think of water changing from a liquid to a gas. The process takes a lot of time and energy, and from the outside, it looks like nothing is happening. Then, at a seemingly random moment, we reach a boiling point and everything changes at once.

You’ve seen this play out, even if you didn’t have a name for it.

For years, Harvey Weinstein operated in patterns of abuse that were an open secret in Hollywood. His position as a powerful career maker was used to prevent this knowledge, which was widely understood in the industry, from becoming shared. Dissent from whistleblowers and victims was discarded because their complaints were scattered. Through no fault of the victims and whistleblowers, there was no unified front because there was no safe way to address the problem.

The process of Weinstein’s deeds transitioning from scattered to shared knowledge started with one victim speaking publicly. This was impossible to ignore. It also signaled to others who privately suffered for years that they were not alone and created a unified front against a common problem. Now that everybody knew that everybody knew how the man operated, the entire industry quickly made an about-face and avoided associating with Weinstein and eventually led to his arrest. The transition ended once companies viewed Weinstein as a risk to their business.

We have the same problem in the data economy. We all feel something is wrong with how we are treated by many companies we interact with, but we don’t have the language to describe it. The feeling is scattered knowledge. Despite being essential stakeholders in the data economy, people are not treated fairly. For example:

• Many companies demand much more of people’s information than necessary;
• People must give their informed consent at a moment’s notice with no discussion; and
• Bad actors in the industry routinely violate people’s property rights.

Understandably, nothing happens to benefit people because there is no unified front to be seen and heard. They have no representative at the table to defend their best interests and push back on unfair terms. They don’t even have the language to describe the problem or the ability to see what’s happening to them.

The thing that motivates me and my work at My Data Union is that I believe in the power of an idea. I’ve seen many examples of people and ideas changing a rigid dynamic, triggering scattered knowledge to become shared knowledge. It all starts with a beacon, a visible pack with clear motives to initiate the transition. If a critical mass of people stood up tomorrow, clearly stated that they knew the status quo was not serving them, and offered a reasonable alternative, companies would understand the jig is up and they need to adapt.

My Data Union serves as a beacon for those who want the data economy to serve them. Join the waitlist and become part of the critical mass that makes the knowledge shared.

The phrase frames you as a passive object, something to be possessed. But you’re not the product. You’re the owner of valuable property that’s being taken from you without your knowledge, without your consent, and without a dime of compensation.

Every time you search, shop, drive, or browse, you generate valuable data. That data is your property, and an entire industry is built on selling it out from under you. I know you’re skeptical of the actual value, so let’s get specific about how your data is captured, priced, and sold every week. To do that, let’s follow Becky through a normal week.

Becky’s transactions tell a story

Every purchase Becky makes creates a data point. Becky sees coffee runs, taxi rides, grocery store trips, and clothing purchases, while the market sees something else entirely.

A week of ordinary spending reveals Becky’s habits, brand loyalty, income bracket, and that she’s spending more on higher-end products.

Becky’s data is combined with millions of other people, and it reveals where the entire economy is heading in real-time.

Brands and investment firms pay handsomely for these signals because they can see the economy moving before official reports are published. In fact, the dataset is so powerful that stock traders use it to know how a company is performing before the company even reports its own results.

Becky’s searches reveal what she’s thinking

Becky’s search history is a direct window into her mind, and any app with a search bar for her to type is capturing the insight. Think about the things she might type into apps without a second thought.

Six different apps that see six ordinary moments in Becky’s week. None of them felt like she was giving something valuable away, but each one is a piece of her identity puzzle that, when assembled, becomes a portrait of who she is. One week of data told the market she’s a young professional who hasn’t started investing, is considering a career change and a move to Texas, has a foot condition, is about to spend money on concert tickets, and might be ready to refinance a home.

Becky’s location reveals where she goes

Becky’s phone and the apps she uses track her movements constantly. During COVID, her location data, along with millions of others’, was used to track real-time migration patterns. The market could see which cities people were leaving and where they were going months before official reports caught up. The usefulness of Becky’s location data increased since then and is desired by many different types of data buyers, such as retailers measuring foot traffic, political campaigns targeting voters, and real estate investors pricing neighborhoods. It is one of the most desired single pieces of data that she creates.

Who’s profiting and how much

Each of these data types is valuable on its own, but together they form something far more valuable. For example, one highly desired combination is search, location, and transaction data. When combined, buyers can map Becky’s complete path to purchase among other things.

Middlemen called data brokers are capturing these small pieces from Becky’s apps, combining them into an imposter version of her, and selling it like hotcakes. Here’s how the process works:

Becky (1) starts the process by using apps on her phone. (2)The apps gather the data Becky creates and sell it to data brokers. (3) The data brokers combine Becky’s data from multiple apps and create a counterfeit identity puzzle of her real identity. (4) Becky’s sham identity puzzle is then lumped and dumped into things called data lakes, alongside millions of others.

Becky isn’t alone. This is happening to all of us. The data in the data lakes are marketed just like corporate software subscriptions. You can see it for yourself in the marketplace.

Nearly half a million dollars for one subscription, from one company, for a fraction of the data you and Becky create. And these are the cheap data brokers! Imagine how much more money there is and ask yourself ‘why aren’t I being paid for this?’

A business built with straw

A data broker’s profits depend entirely on you never realizing your property is being taken from you. Right now, counterfeit versions of your identity is being sold all over the market.

If there’s one thing I learned during my career on Wall Street, it is how to spot a bad business model. Not bad because it isn’t profitable today, but because the entire model depends on one fragile assumption: that people will never notice they’re being exploited. That’s a big risk to take because people can figure it out at any moment!

You’re the owner, not the product

In my experience, businesses built on ignorance are always one wave of awareness away from crumbling. With your help, I want to create that wave and redirect those profits from data brokers to you. My goal at My Data Union is to help you assert your ownership, and we are building the infrastructure for you to control your data and get paid when it is used.

We can stop others from monetizing the illegitimate version of you, and we can make sure data brokers can never monetize it again.

There’s strength in numbers, and every single consumer can help create a bigger wave. Join our waitlist below if you’re interested in making it happen.

Your data is your property. Let’s make it work for you.

Here’s how to take possession of it.

Step 1: Open your account menu

Log in to ChatGPT. In the bottom-left corner, click on your Account name or colored circle to open the account menu.

Step 2: Go to Settings

In the menu that appears, click Settings.

Step 3: Navigate to Data Controls

Inside Settings, click on Data controls in the left-hand menu. This is where OpenAI lets you manage your data, which includes exporting it.

Once you’re there, find the Export data row and click the Export button.

Step 4: Verify it’s you

For security, OpenAI will ask you to confirm your identity. A verification code will be sent to your registered email address. Enter the code on the screen, then click Continue.

Step 5: Confirm the export

After verifying your identity, you’ll be taken back to the Data controls screen. Click Export one more time to trigger the confirmation dialog.

A popup will appear explaining what’s included in the export. Review it, then click Confirm export.

Step 6: Watch for the email

OpenAI will immediately send you a confirmation email letting you know your data export has begun. This is just a heads-up, and your data isn’t ready yet. Sit tight.

Step 7: Download your data

Within about 24-48 hours, you’ll receive a second email with the subject line “ChatGPT — Your data export is ready.” Open it and click the Download data export button inside that email.

Important: The download link expires within 24 hours. Make sure you download your data promptly.

What comes next and why this matters

What you’ve downloaded is your full conversation history: every prompt, response, image you submitted or generated, and metadata about how OpenAI processed it all. This is just the beginning. The real value lies in the insights about the data, which requires some expertise to extract.

Fortunately, My Data Union is building a tool to help with this. Point it at your ChatGPT export and it will translate the raw files into a plain-language summary of what the platform knows about you. Some of it you’d expect, such as the topics you gravitate toward and the problems you keep coming back with. Others are less obvious, like how your thinking shifted over time, the types of words you use most, and the patterns in what you ask for help with versus what you figure out on your own. Taken together, it’s a portrait of how your mind works. That portrait has real market value. Right now, you’re not seeing any of it.

ChatGPT is one data source among many. In all of them, you surrender the value you created while a trillion-dollar industry profits from it. Our role at My Data Union is to help you assert your ownership rights in a market where you have no control or representation. Taking ownership of your own data is the first step toward understanding what you created, what it’s worth, and who should have access to it. Your data, your terms.

Once the tool is publicly available, a future article will walk through how to use it. Sign up below to join the waitlist and get early access.

Before I get to the steps, I want to recognize and applaud Apple for taking a meaningfully different approach. As a lifelong green bubble who has spent countless hours researching privacy techniques, I was shocked to learn about the differences between the platforms while preparing this article. The first difference: Apple automatically opts-out its users from tracking features, requiring people to explicitly enable them. The second difference: once opted-in, your Apple devices’ license plate, the Identifier for Advertisers (“IDFA”), is still not distributed to apps by default. When an app wants access, it must explicitly ask you through a clear, standardized prompt. And when you do grant permission, Apple tells you which apps have it and lets you revoke it at any time. While there is certainly more nuance that ought to be added, this level of control and transparency should be the benchmark for every consumer device.

Here is how you can audit the permissions you’ve granted, opt out of distributing your IDFA entirely, and disable the settings that make it too easy for companies to profile you. Even on a platform that respects your privacy more than most, your data is still your valuable property that others should be paying you to access.

Step 1: Go to Settings

From your Home Screen, tap the Settings app (the gear icon).

Step 2: Select Privacy & Security

Scroll down and tap Privacy & Security.

Step 3: Select Tracking

Near the top of the Privacy & Security menu, tap Tracking. This is where you control whether apps can access your IDFA.

Step 4: Disable the Allow Apps to Request to Track setting

If the toggle next to Allow Apps to Request to Track is on, turn it off by tapping the toggle. This is the most important step. When this toggle is off, every app is automatically denied access to your IDFA, and apps won’t even bother asking. Any apps you previously granted permission to will also be revoked. If there are certain apps that you feel must have this information, the toggle should remain on, and the green box below will allow you to individually select the appropriate apps.

Step 5: Disable Apple’s Personalized Ads

Go back to the Privacy & Security menu in Step 2 and scroll to the bottom. Tap Apple Advertising.

You will see a toggle for *Personalized Ads*. Turn it off by tapping the toggle.

Apple’s own advertising system is separate from the third-party tracking that IDFA enables. Even with IDFA disabled, Apple still uses your App Store downloads, news reading habits, and other activity to serve you targeted ads in the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks. Apple says it doesn’t share this data with third parties, but it still builds a profile about you. My criticism is the same as with the IDFA: companies benefit by serving you relevant ads and should pay you for the privilege.

Step 6: Review Location Services

Return once more to the Privacy & Security menu and tap Location Services at the top.

Location data is among the most valuable types of data collected from your device. Review each app listed and ask yourself: does this app really need my location?

For apps that do need it, consider changing the setting from *Always* to *While Using the App* to limit an app’s reach. Also consider turning off *Precise Location* for apps that don’t need pinpoint accuracy; a coarse location is enough for weather, news, and most other services, and it makes you harder to profile.

Congratulations, you protected your property and stopped it from being easily harvested! Apple has built stronger privacy defaults than most, but defaults alone aren’t enough when the entire data economy is designed to discreetly extract your property. Turning off the IDFA does not stop apps from identifying you in other creative ways. Device fingerprinting, location tracking, and other crafty “marketing analytics” still happen behind the scenes, outside of Apple’s control. These steps are a strong start, but they’re not the whole picture. That’s why I’m building My Data Union, which is a platform designed to help you take control of your data, protect it from silent extraction, and get paid when companies want access to it. We’re still in early development, and you can sign up below for early access and our weekly newsletter to follow along as we build it.

There are many ways your data leaks from your device that profile you, and the most prolific way is by distributing your Mobile Advertising ID, or “MAID,” for the purpose of “personalization.” The term personalization is vague and offers few limits about what data should be extracted. While there are benefits to personalized content, I believe the practice undervalues the property we are asked to give up in exchange. This article explains how you can stop your Android device from leaking your valuable data and force the industry to offer better terms for your property.

Before proceeding with the guide below, I would recommend requesting and downloading your Google data first. This process will force Google to delete some of that data, and if you download it first, you will be the only one with some of the knowledge, making your data more valuable.

Step 1: Go to Settings

While on the Home screen, scroll down from the top twice and you will see a cog wheel in the bottom right. Click it to get into your device’s settings.

Step 2: Select Security & Privacy settings

Scroll down and click on the Security & privacy option.

Step 3: Select Privacy Controls

Under the Privacy heading, click the option that says Privacy controls.

Step 4: Select Ads

Click the Ads options towards the top of the screen.

Once you are here, you have a few choices to make on how you want to manage your data profile. While I like the concept of personalized ads and recommendations, I believe Android fails to provide me with enough control, compensation, and transparency to supply my property for this “benefit.” Google and other data aggregators charge money for their data and impose strict controls over how it is used, so why shouldn’t I? Why should I give them a valuable service for free? Until companies are ready to offer fair terms and treat you like an owner, I believe you should be equally protective over your valuable data.

Step 5: Select Delete Advertising ID

By selecting Delete advertising ID, the MAID assigned to your device is permanently deleted and will cease shouting it to apps whenever you use their services. The deletion makes it more difficult for data aggregators and data brokers to create profiles about you and link your behaviors and activities to the ID without your permission.

Step 6: Select Ad Privacy and Opt Out

After you’ve deleted your MAID, return to the Ads screen from Step 5 and click Ad privacy. You will find three additional settings that quietly feed your data to data aggregators and data brokers. Ad topics tracks your interests based on app usage, App-suggested ads sends your in-app behaviors to other apps, and Ad measurement provides data buyers with detailed reports about your actions across multiple apps. Together, they are designed to build a profile of you without your meaningful consent.

My criticism is the same as the MAID, and so is the response. This is the type of constructive resistance that must be introduced in the data economy to force companies to offer fair terms. For now, opting out is the only leverage you have to express disapproval. To opt out, click each option and make sure each permission is deselected and looks like this:

Congratulations, you took control of your property and stopped companies from easily harvesting and monetizing your data! My Data Union exists to help you take it further by putting you first in the data economy. Our tools will help you control, monetize, and protect your property. Sign up below to receive early access and our weekly newsletter.

The datasets are gold mines sitting at your fingertips, and it is your property. To Google’s credit, their ‘Takeout’ data portal makes it feasible to retrieve your property. Here’s how to do it.

Step 1: Go to takeout.google.com

Navigate to takeout.google.com in your browser.

Step 2: Sign in

Log in with the Google account you want to export.

Step 3: Select what to include

By default, most products are pre-selected. You’ll see “X of Y selected” at the top. To download everything, click “Select all.”

Step 4: Click “Next step”

Scroll to the bottom and click the blue “Next step” button.

Step 5: Choose delivery method

• Destination: “Send download link via email” is the simplest option
• Frequency: “Export once” for a one-time snapshot

Step 6: Select file type and size, then click “Create export”

• File type: .zip (works on any computer)
• File size: 2GB is a good default — larger exports get split into multiple files

Step 7: Wait

You’ll see confirmation that your export is in progress.

Step 8: Check your email

You’ll receive a confirmation that the request was received, and possibly receive a second email to confirm your request.

Step 9: Download your data

Depending on the size of the data package, it takes anywhere between an hour to a week for Google to produce the exports. When your export is ready, you’ll receive a second email. Click “Manage Google Takeout request,” then download each part. Please note that your files are only available for about one week.

A note on file size

The data packages can be enormous. For those who frequently use the Drive and Photos services for backup, they can exceed 100GB! If you want to reduce the total size to something more manageable, go back to Step 3 and deselect Mail, Drive, and Photos before exporting.

What comes next

What you’ve downloaded is very messy raw data. It includes hundreds of files full of dates, locations, and activity logs, distributed across different file formats. This is just the beginning; making sense of it all is where real insight and value live. Extracting it requires technical know-how and patience.

Fortunately, My Data Union is building a tool to help with this process. Point it at your Takeout files and it will translate the data into a digestible summary of what the data market already knows about you. Some things we would expect, such as the places you’ve visited, videos you’ve watched, and the search terms you used. Others are less obvious, like how long you lingered at different places and sites, how your interests change over time, and when you experienced a major life event.

After downloading my data and using an early version of the tool, I learned “Ronaldinho Joga Bonito” was the first YouTube search I ever made in November 2011 while logged into my account. Over the next 15 years, I watched another 35 videos with Ronaldinho somewhere in the title. The most interesting part of the observation is not my past and current appreciation for the Brazilian soccer maestro, rather I never made another ‘Ronaldinho’ search after my first. All 35 videos were served to me, which I dutifully clicked. That’s not a coincidence, that’s a monetizable profile. Google knew I’d click the videos before I did, and they sold that prediction to advertisers.

That profile is yours, and now you own a piece.

A future article will walk through exactly how to use the tool once it becomes publicly available. Sign up below to get early access.

There are three ways to sell property: do it yourself carefully, do it yourself haphazardly, or hire an agent to do it responsibly. As we walk through the concept of selling property in the context of data, it’s essential to understand what data buyers want, because it completely defines how you should approach the transaction.

What data buyers want

A misconception that the current system exploits is that most people assume companies need control of and unfettered access to your raw data, such as GPS coordinates and search logs, to make better products. They don’t. What the market needs are the derivatives of the data.

Data aggregators and data brokers know this, which is why they don’t ask you for insights. They prefer to offer you false dilemmas, take possession of your property, and thrust automatic opt-ins on you so they can extract whatever they want from it, whenever they want, without asking you again and without paying you when it’s used. It’s the difference between a potential buyer inspecting a house and a potential buyer tearing open the walls to strip the copper wiring because they wanted the metal.

The industry’s overreach comes at the expense of consumers and fortunately it can be overcome. If what the data buyers need are descriptions and derivatives of your data, and not the data itself, then data does not need to leave your control. You can collect and hold your own data much more reliably than any company could. Once you hold it, with a little help, you can provide data buyers safer, supervised ways to observe what they need and lock the door once they leave. The distinction between custody and access is subtle but monumentally important. It’s the difference between handing a stranger the keys to your house and allowing them in as a guest.

Given this reality, you have three choices for how to handle your digital property.

Option 1: For sale by owner

One way to sell your data is to do it yourself. Find the buyers, coordinate with them, show off what you’ve got, draft the terms, negotiate a price, and execute the transaction on your own. This is the digital equivalent of “For Sale by Owner” with no middleman, full control, maximum profit on paper.

For certain people, and for certain assets, this approach works. If you have the motivation, the time, the technical literacy, and the budget to manage how every company interacts with all your data, then more power to you. But be honest with yourself about what that requires. You’d need to find potential buyers, understand what your data is worth to each specific buyer, how to package it, how to enforce the terms of the deal, and how to prevent the potential buyers from overstaying on your property. Most people do not have the bandwidth to sell their own house by themselves, nor do they have the resources to sell their data alone.

Option 2: Hand out spare keys (this is what you’re doing now)

Since selling data yourself isn’t viable for most, you’re doing business in a way that’s most convenient to potential buyers, regardless of whether they’re genuine or deceitful. They prefer to have unfettered access, so you provide them with spare keys to your house. While some potential buyers are reasonable people looking for a home, others have ulterior motives that conflict with your best interests. This is what every “Accept All Cookies” click, every app permission grant, and every “I agree to the Terms of Service” tap represents. You just cut another key and gave strangers unsupervised access to your property.

The big problems start after you let them in. Some shout, “squatters’ rights!” and start using your property as if it were theirs. They invite over their friends, people you’ve never heard of or agreed to let in, access whatever they get their hands on, and do things with your couch that are illegal in certain jurisdictions. These unwelcome jabronis monetize what they see by profiling your behaviors, tracking your movements across multiple apps and services, and logging sensitive identifying characteristics.

Your front door is now effectively always unlocked for certain interlopers. You technically consented, not to the squatters, not to their friends, and certainly not to whatever they’re doing to your couch, but to the initial terms that made all of it possible. Getting them out now requires time, effort, and legal leverage that most people don’t have. Leaving them in place increases the risk they find and steal your other valuable property.

Remember: these people didn’t even need to move in. They just needed to look around! You gave them the keys anyway.

Option 3: Get an agent (what you should be doing)

The third way to sell your data, and the way people can do it but largely are not yet, is through an agent. A good agent sources and coordinates with buyers on your behalf. They escort potential buyers around the property, making sure buyers can observe enough for legitimate purposes and not harm the property’s value. When the showing is over, the agent escorts the buyers out. Nobody moves in without a signed contract of terms you explicitly agreed to.

Your property does not need to be passed around for the market to function, it just needs to be described accurately by someone representing your interests. A good agent understands what buyers are looking for and can perform this function for you. They don’t let buyers rip open the walls to inspect the plumbing. Your agent can identify what the potential buyer needs for a specific purpose. For example, a grocery store app does not actually require: 1) a log of your precise GPS coordinates; 2) your license plate; 3) your employment information; nor 4) the ability to sell that information to third-parties.^[1] The grocery store only needs to know when you are ready to shop and what items you may be interested in purchasing.

Knowledgeable agents can identify unfair offers and require potential buyers to reveal competitive offers instead, saving you from wasting time. For example, a worthy agent would quickly reject an offer of $1 for data that’s worth $10. They also can research and keep a log of untrustworthy companies on your behalf. A diligent agent would advise you to stop doing business with companies that demonstrate a long history of alleged or proven abuse of their users’ data^[2],^[3],^[4] and recommend viable alternatives. Finally, they can provide or recommend services that help you protect yourself from unwanted data collection.

The missing piece

Representation is the critical piece missing from the data economy and where regulation falls short. Regulation can tell companies what they should not do with your data, but it cannot execute what you want done with it. You do not need a better lock. You do not need a new contract from every company that wants access to your property. You do not need more granular cookie settings. What you need is representation, a seat at the table to make sure you and your property are treated with respect.

My Data Union exists to stand between your data and the thousands of entities that want access to it. You decide how you want to use your property, and we will execute your instructions. We will find the right buyers and negotiate for the best price, carefully supervise the data buyers in the process, and escort buyers out once the transaction is completed. If you’re ready to control, monetize, and protect your data the right way, sign up below and receive early access to the tools and representation you need in the data economy.

The image above tells the story of how data brokers acquire and combine your data. At step 1, is you, the consumer. You interact with dozens of services every day that create information about how you use each service. The information includes things like:

• your location;
• the stuff you purchase;
• how you paid for things;
• what you search for;
• when you use a service or app; and
• your influence.

The companies providing you the service in step #2 are called data aggregators, and they store your data in the silos. Each silo reveals something unique about you.

Do you notice the shadowy figures operating below the silos in step #3? These are the data brokers, and they pay the data aggregators so they can siphon your data away from the silos. You never agreed to this arrangement, you aren’t paid for it, and you are given no transparency into what happens once your property leaves the silo. It’s like a friend pawning a watch you lent them!

At the bottom, all those fragments flow together to form a reconstructed picture of you in step 4. The industry calls this “reidentification,” and it happens when data brokers combine thousands of your identity puzzle pieces that are collected from hundreds of different sources. Think of it like your digital clone, but someone else claims ownership over it.

Here’s the troubling part: once your data leaves those silos, with or without your consent, your control over your property is gone forever. It now belongs to the data brokers who sell and license your property to many other companies without your consent. Your data continues to spread, replicate, and change ownership long after you stop using a particular service. It is an unknown, open-ended cost you are forced to pay in perpetuity that increases your risk of being a future victim of theft and fraud. Could you imagine being charged $50 every year for a cheeseburger you ate five years ago? And even that’s less absurd than reality; at least you would see the bill to know what it is worth!

So, who are the data brokers?

Data brokers are companies that exist solely to buy your behavioral and demographic data. They use your email address, phone number, or device ID to stitch your identity back together from the pieces they collected from the silos. Once they profile you, they sell the profile for immense profits. That’s it, they serve no other purpose. By design you’ve probably never heard of them by name, and you certainly never agreed to do business with them, but they know everything about you! These companies don’t advertise what they really do in plain English. But if you know what to look for, the signs are obvious.

1. Contradictory product and policy

A company’s privacy policy may claim they don’t engage in buying or selling your data, but the sales pitch for their product suite tells a different story. In cases of such contradictions, believe the sales pitch, that’s where the money comes from.

By claiming they’re not data brokers, these companies avoid the scrutiny that comes with the label. They skip registration requirements in states like California and Texas. They dodge audits and data deletion requests. They evade the transparency rules designed to protect you.

I consider companies that reach millions of mobile users many times a day, track people across different platforms and devices, or perform sophisticated location analysis with people’s data as data brokers. The legal word games do not change who they are nor what they’re designed to do, much like calling your dog “Giraffe” does not suddenly transform your dog into a giraffe.

“Meet my pet, Giraffe.” – a data broker, probably

2. Deliberately complicated corporate structure

Headquarters in one country. Data analysis in another. Legal entity in a third. Server infrastructure somewhere else entirely. If there’s one thing I learned as an investment analyst, it is that companies are usually up to something naughty when things are more complicated than necessary. Sometimes it is to avoid regulations in a jurisdiction, and other times to deceive their investors or customers.

If you can’t quickly and easily figure out where a company operates, or if their local presence seems inadequate, that’s not an accident. That’s the design. Odds are that they are performing their services offshore to evade laws, oversight, and transparency.

3. Deceptive marketing jargon

“Privacy-first” data brokers are like “health-conscious” cigarette companies. The words sound nice but are comically hypocritical.

Keep your ears tuned for these phrases:

Data clean room: Sounds sterile and safe, right? It’s actually a facility where different parties bring their consumer data into a controlled environment, mix them together, and walk out with usable and laundered data. And they do it while publicly claiming nothing was technically “shared.” The infrastructure is misused to enable data transactions while preserving plausible deniability.

Identity resolution or identity graph: This means connecting your siloed data back to a single profile. It’s the technical term for solving the identity puzzle at step #4 in the first image. When a company offers this, they’re really saying “we can figure out who you are.”

Audience activation. This is the monetization step. It means taking your reconstructed identity puzzle and pushing it out to ad networks for targeting. Companies offering this are in the business of turning your identity into ad dollars.

These terms exist because “we deeply probe people for information without their consent” doesn’t test well in focus groups. These words sound more legitimate and sophisticated. But when you hear or read this jargon, know you’ve found a data broker.

Squeeze out data brokers and profit for yourself

Look at the image again. Right now, shadowy figures control the pipes between your data and your identity. They profit while you get nothing, and once they have your data, you can never get it back.

The only entity that should be able to form that complete picture is you. You already have all the pieces, whereas most data brokers must buy them from data aggregators, combine them imperfectly, and distribute them irresponsibly. You can do it safely, profitably, and efficiently if you have the right tools and representation in the marketplace. Once consumers realize this fact and signal that they are ready to take the wheel, data buyers, who only care about acquiring large swaths of authentic data to fuel their businesses, will quickly shift their business directly to consumers. Not because of morals, but because of the competitive pressure to find the best data available on the market.

Organized consumers with access to the right tools and representation can push data brokers out of the market and capture that value for themselves. My Data Union is leading the charge to make it possible. Our tools will allow you to collect your own data, understand what it’s worth, and decide for yourself whether to sell it or keep it private. Either way, My Data Union will help you do it effectively.

The data economy won’t change itself. Sign up below and be the first to receive early access to the tools you need to control, monetize, and protect your data.

You create value and deserve an agent

When professional athletes first started drawing crowds, team owners kept most of the money. Players had talent and fans, but no leverage. Most didn’t consider or understand the full implications of their contracts, couldn’t access decision-makers, and negotiated alone against organizations with expensive lawyers and accountants. The result was predictable: players got exploited while owners got rich.

Agents helped change that dynamic. They inserted themselves between talent and money, doing what individuals couldn’t do alone: source opportunities, negotiate better terms, and execute deals that protected their clients’ interests. Today, agents don’t just secure salaries. They negotiate endorsements, protect players with guaranteed contracts, and fight for working conditions like mandatory rest days, injury protections, and limits on team control.

The pattern repeats across industries. Actors got agents, then SAG-AFTRA (a labor union). Writers got the WGA. Musicians got managers and performance rights organizations. Whenever individuals create value that companies monetize, professional representation closes the gap.

You create value too. Every search, click, purchase, and location ping generates data that companies convert into trillions of dollars. But unlike professional athletes or actors, you’ve never had anyone in your corner. No one is finding you good deals, negotiating on your behalf, or protecting you from exploitative terms.

Once consumers organize under a single representative, what can that representative actually do? History offers three proven tactics.

Tactic 1: Negotiate for compensation

When individuals create something valuable, they benefit by organizing and bargaining collectively to establish better terms than they can receive alone. Your data creates value and you need a representative to negotiate for the best price on your behalf. For example, in September 2023, the United Auto Workers (‘UAW’) organized a six-week strike against Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors. The UAW’s stated goals were simple: align corporate profitability with employee well-being, ensure members’ best interests were represented, and end the ‘divide and conquer’ strategies designed to weaken their negotiating leverage.^[1] After a series of escalations and high-stakes negotiations, the UAW secured significant wage increases for its members.^[2]

Tactic 2: Reshape company behavior

Not every company is a bad actor. When they err, most get stuck doing the wrong thing out of inertia rather than malice. Your data flows through these companies, and you need a representative who can show them a mutually beneficial way to handle your property. Sometimes all it takes is the right voice. In the 1970s, the insurance company GEICO was floundering due to mismanagement, heading toward bankruptcy. Enter Warren Buffett on behalf of his investors at Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett didn’t passively invest and hope things would improve on their own. Instead, he intervened by challenging GEICO’s leadership to rethink their approach with both investors and customers.^[3] The company turned around, and Buffett’s investment became one of the most successful of all time.

Most companies handling your data are not evil. They are just following industry norms no one has challenged. A representative can be that challenge.

Tactic 3: Expose and exile bad actors

Some companies won’t cooperate. For them, the only solution is sunlight. Your data is being bought by and sold to brokers who rely on obscurity, and you need a representative who can expose them and cut off their access to your property. Exposure forces accountability. In 2020, an investment research group named Hindenburg Research published detailed reports exposing fraud at Nikola Motors and its CEO, Trevor Milton.^[4],^[5] The research alleged that Milton misled the public to inflate the stock price and attract industry partners. General Motors, previously interested in a major deal with Nikola, couldn’t ignore the findings and broke ties shortly after.^[6] Milton was later convicted of securities fraud.^[7]

When someone documents wrongdoing and makes it public, plausible deniability evaporates. Companies that once looked the other way are forced to choose between continuing business with exposed bad actors or cutting ties to protect their own reputation. Most choose self-preservation. A representative can shine light on data brokers who traffic in your information without consent and make the industry choose how to proceed.

My Data Union: Your representative

My Data Union was built to represent you in the data economy. Using our member base as leverage, we employ all three tactics. Like the UAW, we negotiate for fair compensation for and treatment of your data. Like Buffett, we engage companies on your behalf and guide them towards best practices. Like Hindenburg, we research and expose bad actors, removing the industry’s plausible deniability and exiling those who refuse to respect your rights.

The hardest part isn’t winning these engagements. It’s what precedes it: recognizing the problem and choosing to do something about it. The data brokers getting rich off your property count on your fragmentation and inaction. Once consumers unite behind a single representative, the leverage shifts. The execution then becomes the easy part.

Join us

The data economy doesn’t have to work against you, but you need someone in your corner. Sign up below to join My Data Union and other consumers ready for change. Be the first to receive early access to the tools you need to control, monetize, and protect your data.

What makes the scheme work isn’t just Marty’s cleverness, it’s that everyone around him is incentivized to look the other way. The casino dealers and security guards probably suspect something isn’t right. The books are a little too good and Ruth Langmore, a child, is running the operations. But they’re getting paid, they’re not breaking any laws themselves, and asking questions would only put their jobs at risk. So, they don’t ask. They maintain what lawyers call “plausible deniability.” People can’t be held responsible for something they technically don’t know about.

This same machinery, the mixing, the layering, the willful blindness, operates on a massive scale in an industry you interact with every day: the data economy. Except companies are not cleaning drug money, they are laundering your data.

Where your data goes

Every time you browse the web, use an app, or make a purchase, companies called data aggregators collect information about you through vague terms of service agreements, obscured device settings, and pesky notifications. Some of it is obvious, such as your email address, what you bought, and what you clicked on. Some of it is subtle, such as which devices are yours, what time you usually check your phone, and where you access the internet from.

This information gets collected and sold to data brokers, companies whose entire business is creating consumer profiles without their explicit consent. On the surface, much of this data appears anonymous. But anonymity is fiction in the hands of data brokers whose business models rely upon reidentifying you. According to Georgetown Law, 63% of Americans can be uniquely identified using just three data points: gender, date of birth, and zip code. When data brokers buy enough information from enough sources, they can piece together your identity puzzle and sell it to whomever they want, without your knowledge or consent.

Here’s where it gets murky. Some data brokers know their collection methods are ethically questionable or legally dubious. So, they launder like Marty Byrde, desperate to stay alive for another year while lining their pockets full of cash earned from your property.

The laundering process

Just like the cartel moves drug money through layers of empty shell-companies before it reaches Marty’s casino, some data brokers move consumer information the same way to hide your data’s origin. Data collected from American consumers might be sold to an offshore company, transferred to another company, then routed back to a U.S. company with clean-looking paperwork. By the time it reaches its destination, the trail is cold. Your data, including your identity, is now their property and no one can prove otherwise.

The “casino” in this scheme is the broader data economy, which includes the advertising platforms, marketing systems, targeting algorithms, and AI-trainers that run on consumer data as fuel to their businesses. These platforms don’t launder the data themselves, but they profit enormously from its existence. Like Marty’s casino generating legitimate revenue that mixes with cartel cash, these platforms generate legitimate business value that gets entangled with data of questionable origin.

The casino workers? Those are the operators of massive cloud infrastructure companies that store and transfer data called data lakes. They host consumer data for brokers and facilitate transfers between buyers and sellers. The operators almost certainly suspect that some of the data flowing through their pipes wasn’t collected with meaningful consent. But scrutinizing sources would mean losing clients. It would mean less data hosted, fewer transfers processed, less revenue earned. Shareholders of these companies would get cranky if this happened and promptly replace operators who dare ask questions.

Based on my direct experience with these platforms, they go out of their way to bury their head in the sand to see and hear no evil. When I’ve reached out for transparency and submitted evidence suggesting unlawful activity from certain data brokers, the help desks offer nothing. “We’re just the hosts,” they say. The problem gets pushed elsewhere. Plausible deniability preserved.

Why it matters

In Ozark, the cartel’s money laundering has victims. Communities are ravaged by drug trafficking and legitimate businesses are undercut by competitors with unlimited dirty cash. Data laundering has victims too: you.

Your behavioral patterns^[1], your purchases^[2], your location history^[3], your political views^[4], your family status^[5], and religious affiliations^[6] all get bought and sold without your meaningful consent. The profiles built about you influence everything you see online: the content you’re shown, the ads you see, the prices you’re offered, and the opportunities that reach you. It even affects your access to credit and loans. Companies profit from your information while you receive nothing. When something goes wrong, such as data breaches^[7], discriminatory algorithms^[8], manipulative and fraudulent ad campaigns^[9],^[10],^[11], or incorrectly attributed data,^[12] you bear the full consequences while those who profit hide behind legal complexity and willful ignorance. In other words, you own all the risk and get none of the rewards. Talk about a bad deal!

If you doubt the scale of what’s happening, consider reviewing the marketing materials from the largest data brokers. For example, this a marketing piece from one of the largest data brokers boasting about their reach and capabilities. Ask yourself these questions after glancing at it:

1. > 2.5 billion connected consumers globally. Are you one of them? Did you agree to be?
2. > 5 trillion records processed per month. Where do those records come from?
3. > 10k unique attributes tracked. What do they know about you? Who told them?
4. Recognizing unauthenticated visitors to drive personalization and relevance. How are they identifying you even if you haven’t logged in or explicitly provided your data?
5. Data sold to advertisers, AI systems, and precision targeting partnerships. Who is buying your profile? Why? For how much?

And at the bottom of the page, in small text, you are reassured that they are “committed to ethical data use.” Do you believe that?

The current system works because consumers are fragmented. Individually, you have no leverage against trillion-dollar platforms and the shadowy data broker networks that undermine your choice, wealth, and privacy. You can’t trace where your data went. You can’t negotiate for fair compensation. You can’t force accountability. And unfortunately, you should not expect any meaningful help from the government to serve your best interests.^[13],^[14]

But what if consumers weren’t fragmented? They force the market to find a new equilibrium. One that benefits them, as it should have been all along.

Coming next

In the next article, we’ll explore how organized consumers can break the data laundering machine. Not by opting out of the data economy, but by inserting their own representative into it. Like engaged investors who shine light on corporate fraud, or labor unions that negotiate fair terms for their members, a collective acting on behalf of consumers can remove plausible deniability, exile bad actors, and demand fair compensation for the data that fuels the entire system.

The data economy doesn’t have to work against you. But first, you need someone in your corner. Sign up below if you want to join My Data Union and other consumers who are ready for a change. Be the first to receive early access to the tools you need to control, monetize, and protect your data.

According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2023, only 21% of Americans are confident that those with access to their information will do what’s right.^[1] If you’re among the other 79%, your skepticism is earned. The data economy wasn’t built to serve you. It was built to extract value from you.

Every day, companies collect enormous amounts of information about your life: information about where you go, what you search, what you buy, who you talk to, how long you linger on a page, what time you wake up, how far you drive, what apps you open, and what you enjoy are valuable. While this may seem trivial, I believe it could be worth thousands of dollars per year to the average person, if managed correctly. But you don’t manage it. You don’t see it. It’s impossible to even know the full extent of what’s being collected now. Instead, that value flows to data aggregators, data brokers, and data buyers. Everyone except you, the person who created it, is making money from your property.

How did this happen? Through tactics designed to strip away your ability to participate.

“You have no choice. You have owners.”

Companies gain access to your data through automatic opt-ins buried in settings you never opened. You’re enrolled in programs you didn’t know existed, sharing information you never explicitly agreed to share. Your terms of service change without meaningful notice, and new reasons are always found to take more of your data. By the time you learn about any of it, much less object, your information has already been harvested.

When you do encounter a choice, it’s usually a false dilemma where you must either accept vague, intrusive terms or not use the product at all. There’s no negotiation, no middle ground, no option to say, “I’ll share this but not that,” and no transparency to see what companies pay for your data. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition dressed up as consent. From there, your data then circulates through layers of data brokers, moving fast enough to ensure that no single company is held accountable for how your information is collected, sold, or used. By the time your data reaches its destination, you’ve been completely removed from the process with no way to control what’s yours.

This is why 61% of Americans feel skeptical that anything they do will make much difference when it comes to their data.^[1] They don’t need Carlin-level skepticism to recognize the system wasn’t built for their participation. The average person has no practical way to control, monetize, or protect their own property. The problem isn’t awareness or willingness, it’s that the infrastructure to act on either doesn’t exist.

But here’s what the same study also reveals that makes me hopeful: 78% of Americans trust themselves to make the right decisions about their data, if given the opportunity.^[1] People don’t need to be told what to do with their data. Like I described in a previous article, what’s acceptable to share is subjective and comes with nuance. Companies with conflicting interests to their users are not reliable to decide such things on their users’ behalf. What people need is straightforward: the infrastructure to communicate their own preferences to the marketplace and representation to enforce those preferences once they’ve made them.

I created My Data Union to fill this gap in the marketplace. My Data Union provides its members with the tools, representation, and market access that people need to manage their valuable property. Its purpose is to be a trustworthy steward of its members’ data in the marketplace. Whether you want to sell a lot of your data for the highest possible price, or keep your property private entirely, My Data Union acts on your behalf. Your property. Your profit. Your terms.

As Carlin put it: “It’s a big club… and you ain’t in it.”

But you should be—and you can make money while being part of the solution. Ready to be an active participant? Sign up to be first to know when we launch. You’ll also receive weekly insights while you wait.

Every day, people are offered false dilemmas designed to strip them of their choice. They are forced to “choose” between accepting lobsided terms of service for the products and services they need or being excluded altogether. My Data Union was created to help people reclaim their choice in a marketplace that habitually disregards it. Let’s explore how to identify false dilemmas, the spectrum of choices people do not realize they are missing, and what people can do about it.

The purpose of creating a false dilemma is to manipulate the chooser into believing the only viable options are what they are presented. Real choice is not an all-or-nothing decision and presenting it as such is a time-tested way to deceive someone into doing something they probably do not want to do. Parents play the false dilemma game all the time to quell the mini-rebellions conducted by their children. Does this exchange sound familiar?

Creating false dilemmas in the household is an acceptable battle tactic between parent and child. Dad knows his son needs to go to bed but getting him there requires Dad’s finesse to avoid confrontation. Dad’s proposition of “go to bed now” or “after you’ve cleaned your room” intentionally skips other permutations that Dad does not want to entertain.

Outside of the household, false dilemma tactics are a form of gaslighting, unfriendly and unprofessional. Consent happens with nuance between people and businesses that respect a mutually benefitting relationship, and who welcome difficult discussions. Unfortunately, people’s choice and consent are routinely stripped away, forcing consumers to surrender their digital property to middlemen who control and monetize it instead.

To thwart those who conduct business through false dilemma and other abusive tactics, we must first know how to recognize it and understand what other options exist. The following passage illustrates how an average consumer, Brianna, is stripped of her choice and what options she is missing.

Brianna uses App A, a popular mobile app that demands access to her device’s location via WiFi, Bluetooth, and/or GPS coordinates. While in use, Brianna’s location data is sent into a black box that is exclusively controlled by App A, providing no transparency to Brianna. Depending on Brianna’s device and her settings, App A also collects her location data in the background. Some of her location data is used to make the service smoother for Brianna, but most of it is sold by the data aggregator to data brokers for a quick buck. Brianna has no way of establishing what data can be collected, understanding what it is worth, nor controlling who can access it.

Let’s assume App A only collected Brianna’s location data (an unrealistic assumption but one that makes a point). After a short while, the app’s developer still holds a lot of valuable and potentially invasive data about Brianna. The data ranges from dissociated to sensitive to Brianna and she has no ability to limit: A) what data is sold to third-parties, such as data brokers; nor B) what information should be kept private.

As we can see, a lot of information can be learned just by collecting location data. “Allow” and “do not allow” options do not reflect the nuance of how the data can be used nor which companies should have access. For instance, Brianna may not care that fast-food brands can see her sensitive location data as she approached 123 ABC Lane and welcomes the opportunity to sell them the data. Brianna may be comfortable with selling dissociated data that reveals she and 49 other people in an anonymous data lake of 1,000 consumers visited a health clinic last week, but reluctant to sell location data to foreign-registered data brokers that reveals where she lives and that she recently visited an abortion clinic.^[1] Similarly, Brianna could be comfortable monetizing dissociated or personal information about some of the places she visited most last week, but uncomfortable when her family’s safety and location-sharing app sells her family’s location data to data brokers that want to assemble her family’s identity puzzles.^[2]

Brianna is the rightful owner and operator of her data. Her data sensitivity is subjective and how it is distributed disproportionately impacts her. Therefore, Brianna must be provided with the opportunity to control, monetize, and protect her data however she sees fit. Companies whose business models conflict with Brianna’s best interests should not be able to make such decisions for her. Similarly, the market needs a viable method to help treat Brianna fairly.

My Data Union is a collective of consumers that want to reshape the data economy and assert control over their property. They recognize the all-or-nothing, black-box approach companies use to collect their data is unacceptable and are organizing with others who feel the same way. My Data Union’s purpose is to provide its collective with the tools to control what data is revealed about them, education about how different companies utilize it, and the ability to decide where on the spectrum of choice they wish to participate.

Organized, informed consumers create significant negotiating leverage, and My Data Union can apply that leverage to demand for better treatment of its members by negotiating for equitable, transparent terms of service agreements with the services its members use most. Finally, members also gain the ability to directly access the consumer data market, whereby members can safely and consensually monetize their data in a way that is comfortable to them. Whether someone wants to offer all their data for sale, none at all, or something in between, My Data Union’s purpose is to provide members with the platform to make informed decisions for themselves and enforce their preferences in the marketplace. Every new member increases the collective’s strength, so if this mission appeals to you, sign up below.