Starve The Machine

Most writing about privacy asks you to be frightened, then hands you a list of software to install. This book does something quieter. It explains what the collecting is actually for, who pays for it, and why the defaults on your phone are set the way they are.

The premise is in the title. The systems that profile you run on a supply of small, freely given inputs: an address on a form, a permission granted in a hurry, a banner accepted to make it go away. Reduce the supply and the profile degrades. Not dramatically, not all at once, but steadily, and without asking you to leave modern life.

It is a book for people who have read enough alarming headlines and would now like an accurate explanation, followed by changes small enough that they hold.