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authorNicholas Johnson <mail@nicholasjohnson.ch>2025-02-05 00:00:00 +0000
committerNicholas Johnson <mail@nicholasjohnson.ch>2025-02-05 00:00:00 +0000
commitebe8109259e8fe0c4a5ae4b3e16805f594f9b6c44064d36cb3c0d30bc328ca6e (patch)
tree57c2900c1932cb9e13205b3a2af34fab707cc95f1da6d333afe548a44499c2ae /content/entry
parent6b9bcf8096963abb0a3de7748ebeaa8d5fb4aeb60713a6771099b173ce89c9c3 (diff)
downloadjournal-ebe8109259e8fe0c4a5ae4b3e16805f594f9b6c44064d36cb3c0d30bc328ca6e.tar.gz
journal-ebe8109259e8fe0c4a5ae4b3e16805f594f9b6c44064d36cb3c0d30bc328ca6e.zip
Replace instances of 'Paypal' with 'PayPal'
'PayPal' is the correct spelling.
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-rw-r--r--content/entry/avoiding-consumer-surveillance.md2
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diff --git a/content/entry/avoiding-consumer-surveillance.md b/content/entry/avoiding-consumer-surveillance.md
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We live in the age of [surveillance capitalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism). Intimate data about us is collected, bought and sold for profit and social control. Intermediaries like banks, payment companies, credit card companies and governments have unprecedented access into our private lives through our purchases. This level of surveillance is tyrannical. [Mass surveillance is dangerous to the health of democracy](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.en.html) and must be stopped. Big Brother should not know what we buy. In this post, I'm going to talk about how we avoid consumer surveillance. In a future post, I'll talk about anonymous online shopping and some promising software projects that could be a more permanent remedy to consumer surveillance. Ultimately, there is going to have to be political action to curtail surveillance, not just new technology. But until there is increased awareness of mass surveillance and real political action against it occurs, all we can hope to do is avoid the surveillance. So here's how you do that.
# Always Pay Cash
-This is the golden rule. To avoid surveillance, you should always pay in cash. Never use a credit or debit card. Never use Google Pay, Apple Pay, Cash App, Samsung Pay, Paypal, Circle Pay, Venmo, Square Cash, Zelle, Facebook Messenger, or any other payment app. Reject online shopping unless you can remain anonymous. Don't shop at Amazon, Ebay, or other online marketplaces that require you to identify yourself. Is always paying in cash inconvenient? Maybe. That depends on how reliant you are on online shopping. Is it possible? Definitely. Is it worth it? Absolutely. Paying cash even once helps resist surveillance. Even though Big Brother would love to see a [cashless society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashless_society) where all your purchases are fully transparent, we aren't in that dystopian nightmare yet. If a merchant refuses to accept your cash, then find another merchant that will take cash. You'll be anonymous and you'll create economic pressure against a cashless society. If the story ended there, I'd just end this post now. But it's not that easy.
+This is the golden rule. To avoid surveillance, you should always pay in cash. Never use a credit or debit card. Never use Google Pay, Apple Pay, Cash App, Samsung Pay, PayPal, Circle Pay, Venmo, Square Cash, Zelle, Facebook Messenger, or any other payment app. Reject online shopping unless you can remain anonymous. Don't shop at Amazon, Ebay, or other online marketplaces that require you to identify yourself. Is always paying in cash inconvenient? Maybe. That depends on how reliant you are on online shopping. Is it possible? Definitely. Is it worth it? Absolutely. Paying cash even once helps resist surveillance. Even though Big Brother would love to see a [cashless society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashless_society) where all your purchases are fully transparent, we aren't in that dystopian nightmare yet. If a merchant refuses to accept your cash, then find another merchant that will take cash. You'll be anonymous and you'll create economic pressure against a cashless society. If the story ended there, I'd just end this post now. But it's not that easy.
# Avoid Disloyalty Programs
Paying in cash is [necessary but not sufficient](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency) for anonymous purchases. Just because you pay in cash doesn't mean you're anonymous. Retailers have come up with clever ways to trick you into deanonymizing yourself even when you pay cash. They're called [loyalty programs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty_program). Here's how their dirty scheme works: An "operator" asks you if you're already signed up for the rewards program. If you say no, they ask you if you want to sign up. If you agree, then they begin asking you for personally identifying information about yourself like your name, address, and phone number. Things they have absolutely no business knowing that are irrelevant to the transaction you're performing. Once you cough up your information, they give you a [rewards card](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashback_reward_program), otherwise known as a points card, advantage card, or club card. On all your future purchases, you use your loyalty card and earn "points" which gives you future discounts and deals. The catch is they link all your purchases with your identity and then sell that data to data brokers. I call them disloyalty cards because you're being disloyal to your fellow citizens by tacitly approving of consumer surveillance. Disloyalty programs are only loyal to Big Brother. Every time you use them, you make it harder for other people to reject them. You're voting for surveillance with your money. Others that don't submit themselves to the unjust surveillance may have to pay fees of up to 10% for not being signed up. See [Sam's Club](https://www.samsclub.com/).
diff --git a/content/entry/private-online-shopping.md b/content/entry/private-online-shopping.md
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I wish I could say that's all because it feels like the overhead for making a private purchase is getting outrageous. But there is one more privacy threat to overcome. That is the payment method. The payment method more than anything is going to eliminate online web stores from our list of private marketplaces. Here's a non-exhaustive list of the payment methods that you have to throw out the window when it comes to privacy:
* debit card
* credit card
-* Paypal
+* PayPal
* Google Wallet
* Stripe
* Apple Pay