Friend,

Using a smartphone. Browsing an online store. These everyday activities — and so many others — generate personal data about our identities, preferences, behaviors and more. Tech, retail, insurance and marketing companies vacuum up this data to target you for their profit.

This rampant harvesting of our personal data leads to discrimination, disclosure of sensitive information and other abuses — like excluding specific users from the same information and opportunities as others.

That’s why Free Press Action released a powerful new report — Insatiable: The Tech Industry’s Quest for All Our Data — which shows the extent to which tech platforms like Google and Meta have access to our personal information.

But we can only put these findings to work — urging Congress and regulators to protect our personal data — if Free Press Action supporters like you help power our advocacy. Will you make your first-ever donation to Free Press Action? Your gift will help us ramp up our organizing for the policy solutions we need.

What personal information are these Big Tech companies gathering about us — and how are they using it? In theory, the answers should be in these companies’ lengthy privacy policies! In reality, these are actually data-collection policies that describe the scope of the information companies collect and the open-endedness of their ability to store — and exploit — your data. And these companies constantly update these policies, making it impossible to keep track of how they’re using our personal information. 🤯

People in the United States agree — according to a Pew Research study from 2019, most adults are concerned about how companies are using their data and feel they have little-to-no control over any of it.

If you’re frustrated, you’re not alone. But we’re not powerless. Make your first donation to Free Press Action to help us fight for the data-privacy protections we all deserve.

With your help, we can put pressure on Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to stop corporations from exploiting our personal information and violating our privacy.

—Dutch and the rest of the Free Press Action team
freepress.net