Defending Our Right to Online Privacy

Maintaining your privacy online is a constant battle. Advertisers, content aggregators, corporations and governments all derive value from the breadcrumbs of metadata unconsciously dropped as you go about your daily tasks online. Historically tools like ad blockers have played an integral role in the constant battle we wage for our privacy. The next generation of privacy protection tools are starting to emerge. Two tools which I believe represent a great step forward in enabling us to assert our right to online privacy are described below:

AdNauseam:

The satisfying summary view of AdNauseam, with a rough estimate of your impact on the incestuous modern day advertising infrastructure

This browser extension (a fork of the legendary uBlock Origin) aims to reduce the utility of ad network user profiling through an ingenuous little trick. In addition to hiding advertisements, AdNauseam actually clicks through on all caught ads in the background. Though the advertising networks will still have a profile on you, the profiled data shows a user who clicks on literally everything. This drastically reduces the value of user profiles and targeted advertisements in addition to helping devalue on of the most prominent advertising pricing models that exist (Pay Per Click). 

TrackMeNot:

Similar to AdNauseam, TrackMeNot prefers the technique of obfuscation and noise as an added layer of defence from prying eyes. Aimed at reducing the utility of one of the most common surveillance areas, this browser extension fires off random search queries to major search engines, effectively drowning out your own searches in a flood of "ghost queries".  Not only does this impact the advertisers who rely on user search data for targeting, it also helps derail the mass surveillance agendas of powerful corporations and governments who have historically abused their position and access to said data.

TrackMeNot's log of recent random search queries (at a rate of 10/minute)