Strategies for reclaiming our personal privacy online

Wow. I've not seen an article in a long while so eager to enpower users by further outsourcing their privacy decisions. Users need to take control for themselves. Outside bodies, be them corporations, governments or something else, will always have different interests than those of individuals. Outside bodies therefore cannot be trusted to enforce privacy.

1) "First, governments need to ensure that Big Tech’s handling of our private data..."

No. Governments are the ones who want access to what 'Big Tech' collects. They are in no position to limit collection or use where they themselves enjoy and rely upon open access. Google the "going dark" narrative to see in which direction governments want to push privacy.

2) "Different types of data need to be treated differently."

By whome? I'm no republican, but I do think it naive to believe that we can tell google how to handle the data it collects via services it offers for free. They practically invented this data. Rather than ask them to strangle themselves, we should focus on physically limiting their abilities to collect it in the first place (Tor and other clientside encryption schemes).

3) "We need aggressive deletion policies"

Bye Bye internet archives. The right to be forgotten is great until one realizes it's just another form of censorship. Those drunken selfies are painful to see, but the onus is on the idiot users who attach their names and full contact data to every drunken tweet.

5) "affordable paid options, with better privacy?"

Lol. Payment schemes only add to privacy worries. Now they have a CC number, legal name, or even mailing address to attach to an account. Or perhaps the OP wants anonymous payment schemes. That is a far larger issue that runs contrary to my point (1) above.

6) "an ethics body that could give guidance on deletion policies, content moderation and better consumer control"

Another layer of government oversight? Another committee to rubberstamp decisions and project a false image of privacy?

I'll just leave this here...

"Quietly, some geeks are decentralizing the net. Again. Who are they? Why are they doing it? What new technologies are they using? How will this change the world?

We interview them to find out, and we're a community to help out."

http://redecentralize.org/

This article takes the concept of "paying the source directly, so they don't sell you to advertisers", and reframes it in point 4. It's like we're "paying for privacy" now. As though some economist saw "preference for privacy" as a way to differentiate on price, and charge a higher price to a subset of users. Privacy is now like DLC.

Maybe I'm cynical, but this problem can only be solved with legislation.

Data and metadata collected on individuals needs to be considered implicit property of the person. And, any use of that data needs to be licensed and pay royalties. And, a person should not be able to accidentally license their property through click-through EULAs.

article seems to suggest we are at the mercy of governments and corporations to do the right thing instead of individuals to protect themselves

in fact, not a single action by an individual is suggested -- only hinting of policy changes

policy is just not enough

Ah. 5 strategies for companies to follow. Not for us plebs.