It's been a rough time for Google in the news lately, at least if you care about privacy and ethics. I don’t fully grasp all the technical stuff, but whether it’s the upcoming blocking of anonymous app side-loading on Android or the end of “ublock” for Chrome, Edge, and Opera, a $400+ million dollar settlement over a data privacy lawsuit last fall, a $68 million lawsuit settled in January over Google Assistant listening inappropriately to users, stories of Google turning over data in cooperation with law enforcement, or the AI-based overhaul of Google search, privacy and ethics advocates have reasons for concern. Just this week, Google’s Director of Android Platform Security resigned over ethical concerns about Google’s Pentagon AI deal, stating the company has abandoned its moral compass and is breaking its own AI principles. Google is by no means alone as these types of issues have been constant in big tech lately.

By no means do I come to this as a tech expert. Many others with more expertise are thinking through many of these issues right now, but I can share a bit on my own process, in case it might be helpful.

You might be thinking about how to extricate yourself from Google or other major tech companies that have become so omnipresent in our lives. Because they are integrated in many tools we use regularly and already have so much of our data, it seems impossible to escape them and easy to either despair or ignore just how much we turn over to big tech companies, helping them turn a profit while they dramatically shift the world in concerning ways.

So if we're feeling we want to put less data, profits, and essential files in the hands of Google or any other big tech company, it might be good to clarify our goals in order to be effective in that pursuit and not overwhelmed.

Completely removing all of our data is not only near-impossible, but in my opinion, not a worthwhile pursuit. First, these companies already have all of your past data from your interactions and the processes to get them to destroy existing data are lengthy and not guaranteed to work or even exist. Second, companies like Google and Amazon are so deeply interwoven in the hidden infrastructure across the web that you’re interacting with them in ways you don’t realize. There are ways to pursue full anonymity online, but its very tricky to do entirely, and doing it halfway kind of defeats the purpose. If you are doing something where you’re concerned about the tech companies turning over your data to the state, that’s probably where you want to try to more deeply pursue privacy in technical ways involving VPNs and more, but getting to 100% on everything is a never-ending task. To an extent we have to assume that nearly anything we do online isn't truly private and act with that in mind.

Again, you’ll never do this completely, as big tech companies are profiting off of most your web activity through the demand you create for their infrastructure tools and data centers. However, it is realistic to knock out most of the more direct ways Google and others profit off of you. From what I’ve read, it seems the major targets regarding Google, for example, are getting off any paid subscriptions like file storage or paid AI licenses, as well as their browser, search, and email where they generate advertising revenue as you give them both an audience they can sell to advertisers and data that makes their ads more valuable. Finally, LLM AIs like Gemini are another key place to exit, even if you're not at a paid tier, as our collective use of increases their potential to raise investment capital and continually expand their tools and the many negative impacts of them. That short list gives a few high impact targets you could start with, though email and subscriptions can be major shifts to execute. An added benefit on exiting search, browser, (and large-language model AI if you use it) is that you'll break free of big tech’s algorithms/models filtering information for you and the potential power that gives them over what you see and how you think. Finally, a significant amount of those profits get invested back into further expansion of business activity with environmental harm, development of tech complicit in evil actions like warfare, or spent by shareholders on political contributions with negative impact for society. Hitting companies in the wallet matters and helps to extricate us with complicity in these elements.

Recent stories I’ve seen of Google immediately wiping out entire accounts and all associated files and info based on (potentially erroneous) judgements of their AI-based filtering systems about the legality users’ files, content, and activity reminds us just how much trust we place in the places we store essential information and the risk that comes with that. Do you really want one company, a company with questionable ethical judgement, to be able to hold all of your essential files hostage for whatever reason they may come up with, to be able to destroy them all through error or malice, or to face the question on if they turn it all over to a potentially ever-more-authoritarian state which they've shown themselves all-too-willing to cooperate with and cheer on?

Beyond that, when we build our systems and habits, whether business or personal, in ways that depend upon big tech systems, we put ourselves at risk of ever-increasing subscription or license costs for tools we rely on and may find difficult to switch off of. We must always be asking, “Is my data portable? Could I switch to another tool without prohibitive cost or effort if cost or ethical factors came up with the tool I am considering or already using?” If the answer is no, we need to recognize that as a major risk and investigate how to change those circumstances.

I’m early on in making some switches myself and learning a lot, but a few of these things may be helpful. Generally, it’s wise to look for tools with open-source transparency about their code where possible, end-to-end encryption where relevant (especially if you're handling info that may be sensitive), a community of users taking responsibility to continue to push privacy and transparency, a business structure that doesn’t rely on making a profit off of you (at least not in invisible ways), and potentially location of key business elements in a more privacy-friendly nation if relevant for the category of service. There are a lot of resources online about some of these options, in places like r/degoogle and elsewhere on Reddit and beyond.

Here are a few switches I've made, am planning to make, or am considering making:

Browser: Chrome (/Edge/Opera/Safari) » Firefox or modified privacy-focused versions like Librewolf, or Brave

Search: Google (/Bing) » DuckDuckGo, or StartPage or Brave

Email: This is a big one. Getting off Gmail is tough and probably never will be fully complete, but a DuckDuckGo alias connected to it can limit tracking while still using the same system. Major alternatives are Proton, Tuta, Posteo, and Disroot, but there are others out there too without getting deep into the technical world of hosting your own email. Proton is a major alternative across the full suite of Google products, but they’re a major company as well and while promising privacy have had some recent signs of being tied to right-wing politics both in the US and in Europe. I’m definitely still learning here.

Files: Google Drive (/OneDrive/DropBox) » Filen (possibly +Ente for photos)

Office tools/Collaboration: Google Suite (/Microsoft365) » LibreOffice for my own offline editing, which I can store in Filen or locally, but collaboration with others on documents is tricky to replace the way Google Suite works. Dropbox is an option but carries a lot of the same issues as Google. Proton is the most one-to-one replacement but see the note about them again above. I’m trying out OwnOffice for creation of a Google-Drive-like space with collaboration capabilities that runs office tools through OnlyOffice (probably costs more than I can justify for my needs), but I’m also looking at a (cheaper) NextCloud-based option like The Good Cloud or Murena that opens up a lot more of the full features of something like a Google or Microsoft suite (if others are willing to use them with you).

Password Management and Authenticator: Google/Microsoft Authenticator and browser-saved passwords » Bitwarden

Translation: Google » DeepL, maybe… I need to look into what is going on behind the scenes with the AI but it seems well-reviewed on the quality of translation anyway

Next time I get a phone/computer, might I be able to get away from a Google or Apple hardware and/or operating system? There are varied alternatives out there for both, at different levels of separation from those companies and complexity to use.

Other non-Google switches:

Messaging: Whatsapp (which is Meta’s) » Signal

Social Media: Dropping Facebook and Instagram (which are Meta’s), as well as X (I truly have not missed them)

Music: Get off Spotify to something else, for better artist compensation, to protest their sponsor partnerships with entities like ICE, misinformation podcast content, normalization of AI slop music, opaque algorithms, and their executive’s investment in defense and AI. For the moment I’m on Apple Music, but that’s an imperfect solution. We’re also investing in more physical media, imagining a day when by choice or necessity we're no longer on streamed music.

Amazon: Just stop using it anywhere possible? Yes, some online shopping replacements might have their own problems, but the exceptional cases where it is truly necessary to use Amazon for something are exceedingly rare. Ask if the thing is necessary. Ask if the rapid shipping is necessary. Pay a bit more to shop somewhere else, ideally somewhere you think is worth supporting. Get out of whatever paid subscriptions you possibly can with them. All of these companies are bad, but Amazon has to be one of the worst balances of negative impacts vs. necessity of using them.

Book finding/reviewing/sharing: Goodreads (which is Amazon's) » StoryGraph

There might be some sacrifices in convenience in some of these, and there also might be some forced rethinking about our habits and how we arrange our lives, asking ourselves what is really necessary and what might be able to be let go or reimagined in a new way that better reflects our values.

Finally, are you invested in these companies? Particularly in those big retirement funds where your particular investments are usually not highly visible to you. Look into where you're actually invested and what your other options are. You might just be the shareholder turning a profit off of all this without even realizing it and need to consider some changes there.

This is all just a tentative start I’m still learning about, but I do think it’s possible and worthwhile to think about the real costs and risks of our tech dependence, especially when it is heavily linked to one major company like mine has been.

You also might want to check out another post: “Practices and Virtues in a Time of AI”

Photo by Mitchell Liu on Unsplash

If you’d ever like to discuss, you can reply to this email if you're subscribed and receiving it that way, or you can comment on the online post.

It’s also helpful if you want to share this with others via any of the social share icons on the post or by forwarding the email version.

I hope you’re enjoying reading, and I'm always glad to hear your thoughts.