Privacy Focused Companies, How Focused Are They?

Abstract

Consumers can use a variety of products and services at zero monetary cost. These services can include email, photo storage, social networking, searching the world wide web, and much more. While these services provide real value without requiring a monetary payment, many consumers give up privacy that allows these services to be funded through targeted advertising. As consumers have become more aware of how invasive these practices can be, there have been more privacy focused alternatives created. For example, instead of using Google, consumers can use privacy focused alternatives such as DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, and Ecosia. Similarly, instead of using Gmail, users can instead use ProtonMail where they claim that "privacy and freedom come first". But, how do we ensure these companies intentions match their actions? If their actions do not match their intentions, what effect can this have on consumers that choose to use these alternatives from mainstream services with a goal to protect their privacy? Recently, there have been issues raised with these services that may cause concern for consumers and a lack of trust in these alternatives.