Regular readers — and those who notice the number at the end of this Journal post’s title — know that I am a staunch advocate of personal privacy — both online and offline.

And they know that I see Facebook as one of the biggest violators of personal privacy the world has ever known.

Not only because Facebook exploits millions of people’s private data for its own profit — but because it constantly attempts to “educate” the masses into believing that their privacy isn’t important; that they should just [more...]

For the past several years, those who make billions of dollars by exploiting everyone private information have tried to convince everyone that privacy is a thing of the past.

Of course they say that — their entire business model and personal fortunes depend of millions of people being willing to allow their personal data to be exploited.

In fact, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly made statements expressing utter disdain for [more...]

For the past many years, I used Google’s Webmaster Tools to help me optimize my various Web sites for Google’s search engine, and help me administer Google’s spidering of my sites.

In that same time frame, I’ve also sent automated nightly sitemaps of my sites to Google, to ensure that it would be aware of each day’s updates.

Over the years, I’ve also used four different Google GMail accounts as anonymous proxies, to protect my online privacy when corresponding with possibly dubious strangers — being careful not to [more...]

Over the years, I’ve probably received tens of thousands of emailed spam messages — for awhile, I was getting more than 300 every day.

And thousands of pieces of snail-mailed spam, in the form of unwanted advertisements.

Along with hundreds of unwanted telephone sales calls.

But, over the years, I learned some tricks to reduce those unwanted contacts.

So, nowadays, I receive less than [more...]

I’ll bet that most of my readers use Google’s search engine.

And that many of them also watch videos on YouTube.

And use Gmail.

And Google Maps.

And maybe even Google Calendar.

They might even own [more...]

We’ve all read horror stories of travelers’ dealings with the TSA.

Strip-searched little old ladies.

Frisked babies.

Sexually groped children.

Humiliated disabled people.

Attractive women singled out for [more...]

Where I live, the ground under our feet is not dirt — it’s sand.

And the ground water is just a few feet below the surface.

So you probably won’t find any homes that have a basement.

And very few homes that are more than one-story tall.

Except, a few years ago, about a mile from our house, someone [more...]

It’s too bad that they are constantly pressured to share their personal information with strangers on social networking sites.

Along with their private — or even intimate or embarrassing — photos.

And every detail about where they go, what they do, who they’re friends with, and much more.

But now, some teenagers are putting a whole new kind of pressure on each other. [more...]