Open Hostility To Privacy In The Age Of AI

You are paying to have your privacy invaded, your work pilfered, and pictures of your family and children used to train AI.

This is not just the future. This is happening now!

Consumers and privacy conscious companies need to be aware of this epidemic. It is highly likely you are paying lucrative sums to companies who are now subtly changing their terms and conditions so that they may invade your personal privacy, the privacy of your customer’s and probably use your content to train AI.

Let me restate that just in case you missed it: You are paying to have your privacy invaded, your work pilfered, and pictures of your family and children used to train AI.

In the last year, I have encountered quite a few companies that are highly hostile towards privacy and their end users. I discover it through subtle changes in their terms of service or their data privacy agreements. Most companies, when I bring it to their attention, refund my money and I take my money to their non-hostile competitor.

This hostility stems from companies believing it is OK to invade customer’s privacy and using customer’s content in the name of “training AI” and “content moderation.” These companies are changing the terms and conditions of accounts mid way through subscription or contract periods without recourse.

My most painful example so far is Adobe. I am a longtime user of various Adobe products because of my love of photography. But, they have recently changed their terms of service such that they may use all of MY content within my account in any way they see fit. Without recourse.

This hostility goes a step further where they required me to accept the new terms when logging in so that I could get to the point to ask for a refund of the balance of my subscription. The icing on the cake is that they refused a refund. Dark patterns abound.

This is the state of privacy now and will only get worse.

It is time for individuals and companies who care about privacy to pay more attention and take action. If not, you will find that a company is using pictures of your children to train their AI or they are using your customer’s data for their own gain without your knowledge.