New Year, New Digital You
Dear followers of The Opt Out Project,
Today I announce the start of Take Back Your Digital Footprint: a 21-day cyber-cleanse designed to help you retrieve your digital life from the Tech giants.
In a post per day, I’ll walk you through a process for changing your digital habits and services to set you up for success in 2025 and beyond.
By the end of January, you will be starting afresh from a new digital perspective. You’ll have retrieved your old data from services like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and X — places that mine your information for their financial gain not only through advertising, but now through the development of their AI systems.
This is not an attempt at total obfuscation, or going entirely dark. I can’t guarantee you’ll be traceless to the dedicated sleuth. But I will offer a user-friendly approach to throwing a wrench into the gears of the platform giants, their personal data economy and its offspring, “generative A.I.” This is your opportunity to get educated and discover a new way of interacting online, one that puts your identity and your information in your own hands.
Perhaps you or a friend you know is looking for a way to put a digital New Years' Resolution into practice. Perhaps recent political or technical events have you concerned about all the social kruft you left behind like a trail of breadcrumbs, scattered all over the Internet. Perhaps you’re tired of being tethered to your phone and its myriad notifications, or you’ve grown wary of the platform giants. Maybe you’re concerned about your family members’ digital habits too.
In my experience, it’s never too late to get started.
So, start here: https://www.optoutproject.net/the-cyber-cleanse-take-back-your-digital-footprint/ And please forward this note to those friends and family members you think would like to follow along.
While this is typically a low-traffic list, over the next three weeks I’ll send more emails than usual with details about the Cleanse. After that, the list will settle down into a more regular cadence, I promise!
Happy new year to all, and let’s get started!
Janet