It’s Here!

The 2022 *Privacy Not Included Holiday Buyer’s Guide

Hello,

The holiday shopping season is here! And with it, we’re proud to launch our 2022 *Privacy Not Included holiday buyer’s guide.  It has all you need to help you, your friends and family understand how to shop safe for all those connected products on the shelves and online.

Your *Privacy Not Included team spent the past couple of months researching the top holiday tech gadgets from companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Garmin, Fitbit, Ecobee, Verizon, and more.

We looked into the privacy and security of the hot connected products for the holidays – smartwatches, smart speakers, eReaders, game consoles, video doorbells, smart thermostats, connected kids devices and more – to help you know which products work to protect your privacy and security and which products come with *Privacy Not Included.

Here’s a little of what we learned:

• Reading privacy documentation for these connected products is getting harder and harder. To read up on the privacy practices of the Meta Quest Pro VR headset alone will require you to open at least 14 different privacy documents amassing 37,700 words. That’s actually about 6,747 words longer than A Christmas Carol!
• Everything is connected these days. It’s not just smart speakers and fitness trackers anymore. Today there are smartwatches for kids with built-in HD video cameras, robot vacuums with roving cameras and microphones, smart thermostats that can play Spotify, heck, we even came across a connected toilet (seriously, stay tuned for that review). All this means our privacy is more vulnerable than ever.
• It’s not all bad. Some companies are doing OK. Garmin’s smartwatches and fitness trackers earn our ‘Best Of’ rating because they do a good job of protecting all that data they collect. And Ecobee’s smart thermostats seem to care about privacy more than ones from some of the other Big Tech companies.

So, before you shop for those screaming holiday deals, take a minute to check out which gifts and gadgets will respect your privacy and which ones won’t. We’ll keep adding and updating more connected tech toys and gadgets to the guide throughout the holidays. Because no one wants to get something creepy for the holidays!

And don’t forget to share our guide with your friends and family! You don’t want them to get you something creepy this holiday season.

Thank you,

– Jen Caltrider & Misha Rykov

Your *Privacy Not Included Team
Mozilla