Online privacy scandals and reluctance to share data spur rise of the never-Googlers
In the small South Carolina town of Newberry, Bob’s Red Mill muesli is hard to come by.
That presents a challenge for resident Gregory Kelly, who can’t get enough of the stuff. He’d rather not drive 60km or so to stock up on it, but he’s also loath to buy it from the company’s website, which he says is riddled with tracking software from Google.
Privacy being paramount, Kelly grudgingly chooses to drive rather than cede his data to Google or turn over his purchase history to another online retailer. “I’m just not sure why Google needs to know what breakfast cereal I eat,” says the 51-year-old.
Kelly is one of a determined few who are taking the ultimate step to keep their files and online life safe from prying eyes: turning off Google entirely. That means eschewing some of the most popular services on the web, including Gmail, Google search, Google Maps, the Chrome browser, Android mobile operating software and even YouTube.
Never-Googlers are pushing friends and family to give up the search and advertising titan, and online guides have sprouted to help consumers untangle themselves from Google.
People like Kelly are trying to build barriers to Google and other tech giants largely due to increasing concerns about the collection of personal data.
A series of privacy scandals showing how these companies collect and use consumer data has raised alarm bells for many people about how much they’ve traded for customisation and targeted ads. Some Amazon Echo and Google voice-activated speakers have been discarded. And some consumers are saving photos and other personal documents to external hard drives, rather than on Google or Apple’s clouds.
Brands are jumping on the trend, advertising what they say are superior privacy controls. At the CES 2019 tech conference this year, Apple promised in
a billboard that “What Happens on Your iPhone, Stays on Your iPhone,” though many apps siphon data from the phones and track users. And DuckDuckGo, a privacy-oriented search engine, says daily average searches have grown to 42.4 million, from 23.5 million a year earlier — though still a fraction of Google’s.
In May Google unveiled new features it said would help users protect more of their data, including storing more of it on personal devices, rather than in cloud computing centres, and giving people more control over how and when tracking software, or cookies, is deployed. And the Web search giant is offering ways to permanently erase data, including search and location history.
No data on how many consumers may be phasing out Google is readily available, and the company didn’t provide figures on how many have deleted its apps. “We want to help people understand and control their data, even if they want to leave Google,” says spokesman Aaron Stein. He pointed to Google’s service allowing consumers to download information stored with the company for their use elsewhere.
Tech firms like Google say the data helps drive more personal advertisements, which are beneficial to consumers, and underwrite products that would otherwise not be free, like email and photo storage.
Some academics say that efforts to abandon use of Google — or Amazon and Microsoft, for that matter — are nearly impossible. Those companies all have cloud services businesses, or essentially data centres that other companies can rent, and they power most websites.
“The reality is, you’re going to use these services whether intentionally or not,” says Jonathan Mayer, an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University.