One privacy change I made for 2026 (Lock and Code S07E02)
This week on the Lock and Code podcastβ¦
When you hear the words βdata privacy,β what do you first imagine?
Maybe you picture going into your social media apps and setting your profile and posts to private. Maybe you think about who youβve shared your location with and deciding to revoke some of that access. Maybe you want to remove a few apps entirely from your smartphone, maybe you want to try a new web browser, maybe you even want to skirt the type of street-level surveillance provided by Automated License Plate Readers, which can record your car model, license plate number, and location on your morning drive to work.
Importantly, all of these are βdata privacy,β but trying to do all of these things at once can feel impossible.
Thatβs why, this year, for Data Privacy Day, Malwarebytes Senior Privacy Advocate (and Lock and Code host) David Ruiz is sharing the one thing heβs doing different to improve his privacy. And itβs this: Heβs given up Google Search entirely.
When Ruiz requested the data that Google had collected about him last year, he saw that the company had recorded an eye-popping 8,000 searches in just the span of 18 months. And those 8,000 searches didnβt just reveal what he was thinking about on any given dayβincluding his shopping interests, his home improvement projects, and his late-night medical concernsβthey also revealed when he clicked on an ad based on the words he searched. This type of data, which connects a personβs searches to the likelihood of engaging with an online ad, is vital to Googleβs revenue, and itβs the type of thing that Ruiz is seeking to finally cut off.
So, for 2026, he has switched to a new search engine, Brave Search.
Today, on the Lock and Code podcast, Ruiz explains why he made the switch, what he values about Brave Search, and why he also refused to switch to any of the major AI platforms in replacing Google.
Tune in today to listen to the full episode.
Show notes and credits:
Intro Music: βSpellboundβ by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Outro Music: βGood Godβ by Wowa (unminus.com)
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