- Why does (online) privacy matter?
- Yeah, but why should I care? I live in a democracy that protects fee speech!
- I have nothing to hide! Why should I worry about my privacy?
- Why should I use Tor? Isn’t that the Darknet? I’m not a criminal!
I use a VPN to protect my privacy! - What’s the benefit of using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)? It looks ugly and it is hard to use!
Why does (online) privacy matter?
Privacy is about power. You might be a journalist exposing the wrongdoing of a powerful corporation or reporting on government failings. Maybe you're an activist attending climate protests. Perhaps you identify as LGBTQ+, or belong to an ethnic or religious minority. Depending on where you are in the world, protecting your privacy can be essential to protecting yourself - even from physical harm.
But even if you’re not part of a marginalized group, privacy still matters. If you live under an authoritarian regime, it may be the only way to access censored information or express dissenting views safely.
This is just the short version.
To dive deeper into why privacy matters, we highly recommend visiting: privacyinternational.org
Yeah, but why should I care? I live in a democracy that protects fee speech!
That may be true - for now. But it doesn't mean you're safe from mass surveillance or data exploitation. Tech giants like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and yes — even Apple to some extend, despite its privacy branding - are collecting as much data about you as they possibly can. Online trackers log which websites you visit, what links you click, how long you spend reading a post. Algorithms analyze your social connections, compare your contacts with those of others, and track how long you speak to someone on the phone. Your photos in the cloud, your online purchases, your credit card history, your smartphone’s location: it all gets collected. Your laptop, your smart home devices, your search history. Everything.
All of this data is merged into a single, detailed profile of you - your habits, your desires, your fears, your relationships. It even maps your physical movements in real time. Advertisers - and anyone with access to this data - often know exactly where you are, and where you’ve been. This profile isn’t just used to target you with ads or shape your consumer behavior. It’s sold by data brokers to anyone willing to pay - not just advertisers, but also government surveillance agencies. It’s used to decide whether you're credit-worthy, or a liability to an insurance company. It can be weaponized to influence public opinion, manipulate voters, or sway elections: sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly. With enough data, it becomes possible to mobilize specific groups of voters, nudge their opinions, or distract others, all via carefully targeted social media content. This kind of power can - and has - toppled governments.
All this data is merged into a single profile that paints an accurate and predictable picture of you, your habits and your relationships. This data is not only used to manipulate your desires, to send you targeted ads and to show you what you want to see (which is not necessarily what you searched for). It is also sold to data brokers who use it for their own purposes: detailed knowledge about you for example determines wether or not you are credit-worthy or a liability for an insurance company. Detailed knowledge about everybody can for example be used to influence the outcome of an election. With enough data it becomes possible to mobilise a certain type of voter with targeted messages on social media, nudge their opinion into the desired direction and to distract others. It is not hard to see, that such power has the potential to topple governments.
And let’s not forget the state-level surveillance apparatus. Everything collected, your entire digital life, can be accessed by powerful nation-state actors. Intelligence alliances like the Five Eyes (U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) have secret agreements to spy on global communications. In 2013, whistleblower and former NSA employee Edward Snowden leaked documents proving that this power had already been abused on a massive scale. Programs like PRISM, XKeyscore (NSA), Tempora, and MUSCULAR (GCHQ) allowed real-time surveillance of millions of people, globally. In Russia, the SORM system is used to intercept and monitor nearly all communications.
A thought experiment:
What if your democracy changed, gradually or suddenly, into something authoritarian?
What would such a regime do with the data already collected about you, and the data still being gathered?
It’s not paranoid. It’s history repeating itself. Only this time, with far more powerful tools.
The truth is: nobody ever gave informed consent to this system of mass surveillance. It was quietly built behind our backs and it’s now the default.
This is Surveillance Capitalism.
And it’s global.
But here’s the thing:
We believe that if there were a simple button to opt out of it all, a way to reclaim control over your digital life, most people would press it.
Wouldn’t you?
The bad news: there’s no such button.
The good news: there are ways - difficult, messy, but real - to resist.
Protecting your privacy online takes effort.
But we think it’s worth it.
I have nothing to hide! Why should I worry about my privacy?
We hear this argument often. Even Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, once declared that "privacy is dead". The common refrain goes: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
Let’s respond with the words of Edward Snowden: "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
We fully agree. Privacy is about power. To understand this, consider the Panopticon, a concept introduced by 18th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Imagine a circular prison with a single watchtower in the center. The guard in the tower can see every prisoner, but the prisoners can’t see the guard. Since they can’t know when they’re being watched, they behave as if they always are. This is the essence of control: the possibility of surveillance shapes behavior, whether surveillance is real or not.
In today’s digital world, the Panopticon has gone global. With the collapse of privacy, surveillance becomes ambient, invisible, and constant. And just like in the prison, the result is conformity. People internalize the gaze. We begin to censor ourselves — not because we’re doing something wrong, but because we fear being misunderstood, judged, flagged, or punished.
Ask yourself honestly:
Would you still express your true thoughts if you knew they were being logged, recorded, and analyzed?
Would you say the same things in a private conversation among trusted friends as you would in front of a crowd, with cameras rolling and law enforcement watching?
Without privacy, freedom of thought, speech, and dissent begins to erode.
Still convinced privacy doesn’t matter?
Then go ahead: send us the usernames and passwords to all your social media and email accounts. Here is our email address. Include your online banking credentials too. Don’t worry, we’re not going to empty your bank account and your crypto wallet (though that is something actual bad actors might try). We just want to take an innocent look.
After all - you said you had nothing to hide!
Why should I use Tor? Isn’t that the Darknet? I’m not a criminal!
I use a VPN to protect my privacy!
This statement is flawed in several ways.
First, a VPN does not truly protect your privacy. Yes, it encrypts your traffic between your computer and the VPN provider, which prevents your internet service provider (ISP) from logging which websites you visit. It also protects you from exposing your online activity to, say, Starbucks when using their open Wi-Fi. But instead, your VPN provider gains access to all of that information. You now have to trust that the VPN doesn’t log your activity - and even if they claim they don’t, you have no real way of verifying that. It all comes down to trust.
Tor, on the other hand, makes you as anonymous as possible - by design. The Tor Network routes and encrypts your traffic through several nodes, layered like an onion. This ensures that the entry point into the network doesn’t know the final destination of your traffic, and the exit point doesn’t know where it came from. If you use the Tor Browser to access the internet, it also camouflages every user in the same way, so that everyone's fingerprint looks alike. This means the more people use Tor, the safer it becomes for everyone. There’s no need to place your trust in a single company or entity: the system itself is built to protect your privacy.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, we don’t like the word Darknet. And here’s why: When people talk about the so-called Darknet, they often refer to online drug markets, stolen credit card data, financial fraud, botnets, illegal pornography, hackers, and digital mercenaries. To them, Darknet is simply a synonym for cybercrime, an obscure digital space that lies beyond the reach of law enforcement.
Because of this association, critics of the Tor Network and of online privacy often call for pre-emptive surveillance, total network control, and in some countries (like China), even a complete ban on the Tor Browser.
But let’s clear something up: When people refer to the “Darknet”, they’re usually talking about Tor Onion Services, websites that are only accessible anonymously through Tor. These services cannot be reached with a regular browser or a simple VPN. And yes, it’s true that some of those services are used for criminal activity.
But that’s not the whole story, not even close. Tor is also a lifeline for journalists, whistleblowers, activists, and everyday citizens living under censorship. It’s a critical tool for anyone who values privacy online. Not all Onion Services are illegal. For example, the BBC runs an Onion Site that allows users to access its content anonymously via the Tor Network. SecureDrop is a whistleblower platform that enables people to pass information anonymously to journalists. Our own site, term7, is also accessible via Tor.
If we continue to frame the entire Tor Network as the “Darknet”, we effectively paint all Tor users as criminals.
That’s not just wrong — it’s dangerous.
Yes, criminals use Tor. But so do millions of innocent people who simply want to reclaim some control over their digital lives.
AAnd despite the myth that Tor is “untouchable,” law enforcement has successfully investigated and shut down numerous illegal marketplaces, such as Silk Road, AlphaBay , and DarkMarket. How? Because even in hidden networks, people make mistakes. When actual crimes are committed, investigations can and should follow. But we don’t believe crimes should be investigated before they happen, through blanket surveillance or guilt by association.
So why should you use Tor, even if it might “look suspicious”?
Tor depends on a global network of volunteers who run relays on their own servers. Every relay makes the network faster, stronger, and more resilient. We run our own Tor bridge relay, which allows people to access the Tor network even in countries where it’s been blocked. When Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, traffic through our bridge relay increased tenfold, a clear sign that many people needed access to uncensored information, without being identified by their government.
Do you need more reasons to use Tor? Then check out this link: Tor Is For Everyone.
We believe you should be able to explore, communicate, and express yourself online without being tracked.
In the end, it’s your decision.
But we think it’s worth asking yourself: what kind of world do you want to live in?
What’s the benefit of using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)? It looks ugly and it is hard to use!
It’s true, many proprietary applications are polished, visually appealing, and easy to use. But they often come with hidden costs. We don’t support business models that lock users into closed ecosystems. Take Adobe, for example. It’s nearly impossible to transfer your work from Adobe Premiere Pro to Final Cut Pro, because these platforms are not built to be compatible with one another. If your work depends on a specific vendor’s software, that vendor gets to set the terms, including the price you pay. And often, what you’re paying isn’t just money, but your user data. It is quite common for proprietary vendors to limit features, restrict file compatibility, or remove interoperability, all to keep users locked into their product ecosystem.
Proprietary software relies on closed-source code. That means no one outside the company can inspect how it works or what it does. You are forced to trust the vendor, even though you have no way of verifying their claims. This isn’t just a security concern, it’s a privacy risk. There’s a good chance the software is tracking how you use it. In the best case, this is used to “improve the user experience”. In the worst case, it’s used to serve you targeted ads or sell your data.
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), by contrast, is built differently.
FOSS makes its code publicly accessible. This means that anyone with the technical knowledge can inspect, verify, or audit the software for privacy and security. And with FOSS, developers are allowed to fork the code: that is, to take the software and modify it to build something new. That flexibility is at the heart of the open-source movement. Note that open-source doesn’t always mean free of cost. But what it does mean is freedom to learn from the code, to improve it, to adapt it to your needs, and to avoid being locked into one company’s business model.
FOSS projects often strive for interoperability, meaning they’re built to run on different operating systems and to work well with other software. And behind many FOSS projects is a global network of skilled developers and volunteers, regularly reviewing code, fixing bugs, and addressing security issues.
In the end, you get software that is transparent, trustworthy, adaptable, and resilient, even if it may not be as polished as its proprietary counterparts.