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Your Data Footprint Is Affecting Your Life In Ways You Can't Even Imagine (fastcoexist.com)
An anonymous reader cites the following excerpts from a FastCoExist article: Innocently clicking on a link results in ad targeting that's hard to shake and our purchases quickly reveal more information than we intend, such as the infamous example of Target knowing a woman is pregnant before she's told her family -- and before she's purchased any baby products. [...] Predictions about you are deeply shaping your life in ways of which you are probably blissfully unaware. Predictions about you (and millions of other strangers) are starting to deeply shape your life. Your career, your love life, major decisions about your health and well-being, and even if you end up in jail, are now being governed in no small part by the digital bread crumbs you've left behind -- many of which you don't even know you've dropped in the first place.
Only buy routine items online. For anything that requires a bit of discretion, buy it at a physical store with cash.
I wouldn't be surprised if the FBI and NSA start requiring retailers to log cash purchases on their systems.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Or do it the other way around buy lots of bizare and unrelated items, you can always sell them later at eBay. Let Amazon wonder how you can be a pregnant gay man parapalegic who buys a lot of shoes and bike pedals.
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
Of course, Facebook tracks everything
Reminder: You're a dope if you use Facebook, or any other 'social media' platform. It's like smoking: If you're doing it, you can't in any way claim you didn't know it was a bad idea, but you're doing it anyway. These are not survival traits.
Reminder: the fact that you don't find the costs associated with using a service to be worth the benefits doesn't mean that people who do understand that tradeoff, and find it worthwhile, are "dope[s]."