Big Tech is Looting Your Private Life While Lying to Your face About it
- Editor Darren Birks
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
You’re sitting in your kitchen, typing into a private spreadsheet. Maybe it’s your finances, your future travel plans, or ideas for a business you want to build. No one else is around. Then, moments later, you open YouTube... and bam! an ad appears for the exact thing you were just writing about. You didn’t Google it. You didn’t say it out loud. You didn’t even save the file. Sometimes, you just thought it, quietly, privately, and yet facebook, youtube and google appear to have read your thoughts. It feels like you're being watched, and the scary part? You're not crazy. This really is happening.
it is the digital equivalent of Google and Facebook opening your mail, and reading your private diary.
What’s happening isn't random, or coincidence like they'd have you believe, it’s mass surveillance dressed-up in bullshit marketing slogans. Big Tech systematically denies they are monitoring you, but they really are. They wants you to believe they respect your privacy, splashing words like “secure,” “encrypted,” and “private” across shiny ads. Apple says “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.” Google claims it “doesn’t read your files.” Microsoft swears Windows 11 is “yours” but all that is total lies.
The reason it's denied by all parties concerned is because they're using loopholes and weasel words to make it "technically" not illegal while still doing it.
The truth is Big Tech is monitoring you every second of every day both on and off-line.
They use a giant, hidden network of telemetry, behavioural tracking, Metadata harvesting, and device fingerprinting to infer what you're doing. And it's perfectly legal — because they wrote the rules.
What they're secretly doing:
Telemetry: Your Mac, iPhone, Android, or Windows PC constantly sends "diagnostic data" home — how you type, what you type, what you click, what you pause to look at, everything.
Clipboard Spying: Apps peep into your recent copies and pastes. yes, really.
Device Fingerprinting: Your laptop and phone leak a thousand tiny clues that make you identifiable across different apps, browsers, and even networks.
Cross-App Snooping: If you're logged into Google or Microsoft, congratulations — every move you make in one app can follow you onto another.
Passive Listening: Yes, your device is listening to you. Both Apple and Android have a sneaky system that tricks you into giving them access to your microphone. offering you the 'convenience' of hands-free searches by simply saying "hey Siri" or "hey Google" allows them to hear everything you say.
And all of this data on you they keep, millions upon millions of pages of information built up over two decades or more of shopping, browsing, watching, and texting means that they know you better than you know yourself. And all of this is currently done to sell you more stuff.
If you've never stopped to wonder how big tech makes money, when virtually everything on the internet is free, then it's time you did. You are a product. Your life is a spreadsheet full of dollar signs. Big Tech has turned your private life into raw material. Your words, your habits, your hopes, your fears — all carved open, stripped down, auctioned off.
Worse still; They act like it’s their right. Apple sells you a $2,000 laptop and calls it "private" — while bleeding analytics all the time. Google pumps surveillance into your bloodstream with every "free" service. Microsoft, Facebook, and Google act like parasites, feeding on you in your sleep.
Google made $237 billion last year selling you.
Facebook — $131 billion doing the same.
94% of Android apps leaked tracking data to third parties.
In 2024, researchers found that 51 out of 54 Chrome extensions quietly tracked user behaviour — all without express permission.
Big Tech will not stop. They are addicted to your data. They make billions because you stay asleep, distracted, and busy. But you don’t have to be a direct target. You can lock your doors against these data thieves. Whilst it won't stop them completely, it's certainly better than just giving you free access to all your private data.
Tech experts suggest the following to take back your privacy:
Mac (macOS):
Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security. Disable "Analytics & Improvements" and "Personalised Ads."
Install Little Snitch or LuLu firewall to block outgoing tracking connections.
Avoid using Safari logged into your Apple ID — it leaks signals back to Apple.
Use private browsers like Brave or Firefox with uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger extensions.
iPhone (iOS):
Settings → Privacy → Tracking → Turn off “Allow Apps to Request to Track.”
Settings → Privacy → Analytics & Improvements → Turn everything off.
Use Lockdown Privacy app to block trackers at the network level.
On Android:
Settings → Google → Ads → Turn off Ad Personalisation.
Install Blokada or DuckDuckGo App Protection to kill trackers across apps.
Use GrapheneOS (if you want true Android privacy) — it's extreme, but effective.
On Windows PC:
Settings → Privacy → Turn off everything under "Activity History," "Diagnostics," and "Advertising ID."
Install O&O ShutUp10++ to block hidden Windows tracking.
Use a browser like Brave or Firefox — ditch Chrome unless stripped down with heavy privacy extensions.
Set up a software firewall like GlassWire or Simplewall.
The modern internet was built to watch you. You don’t have to make it easy for them.
With just a few tools and some hard settings, you can claw back real privacy and stop Big Tech from treating your private life like free product inventory. Because your diary, your spreadsheets, your ideas — they belong to you. Not to Silicon Valley. Not ever.
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