I’m going to do my best to word this question carefully. I’m not privacy expert and maybe no more than an idiot. I do want to protect myself online.
Which led me to privacy focused cloud based premium solutions. The idea is you can pay for a service so they don’t need to serve ads and scan your data for profit. Services like Kagi , Proton among others offer services for a fee. These services let you pay with a credit card .
My question is , are these services really that private if they have your payment information ? Does it really make sense to pay to not be tracked but still have your information on file and linked to you ?
Is this more of an argument of privacy vs anonymity? Am I looking at this wrong ?
I understand the ultimate privacy is self hosted but for some things like search that limits options. I understand there is crypto for some of these options. But bitcoin isn’t cheap.
Curious to get others thoughts on this ? Please be respectful i am trying to learn…
Here are two ways to pay for things without the payment method being a direct line to you:
Use cash. People will say stupid things like “I’m European and live in a surveillance state and they track the serial numbers!” Let me introduce you to something called “money laundering”. What you do is ask for change or for a big bill. You may need to be a normal person, like a customer of some sort, or a non schizophrenic shut in computer nerd if asking of some person (like a bartender getting off at shift change!).
Use a gift card. People will say stupid things like “well, they know you bought a gift card, so they can tie it back to you!” Again, allow me to introduce you to the vagaries of something called money laundering. Have someone else buy and activate the gift card. Heck, if you really want to be a weirdo about it, do it with your friends and put all your other person purchased gift cards in a fishbowl and draw random ones out.
Gift card stuff is something to poke and prod at first because different stores and cards have different ways of adhering to kyc.
you can pay for proton via cash in mailbox (sending cash to their address with account details)
The real question is what you’re trying to accomplish and why.
That informs your choices.
Privacy, security and anonymity are different things.
Currently Google takes all your data, bundles it up, and sells it to the US government (and basically anyone else willing to pay). The goal of these paid privacy services is not necessarily to prevent the government from getting your information, but rather to make sure the government at least needs to ask for it first.
There are few services that offer both anonymity and privacy, they do exist but nobody really needs that level of privacy unless they’re journalists, whistleblowers, activists, or criminals.
There’s also security reasons, having your messages out in the open unencrypted is a security risk.
I guess when you pay with a credit card, theres limited information being shared. Taking things at face value, you are paying for a service that wont track you, see your data, give away your data etc.
Looking at it in terms of privacy vs. anon is a good way to look at it. If you want anonymity, you won’t be using a credit card I assume, unless it’s a throwaway you can top up. I imagine people who want full anonymity would be using stuff that’s more specialised and niche than the likes of Proton etc., likely FOSS stuff, home servers, services without login/registration.
Privacy is like a step away from anonymity in that regard I think.
