Internet privacy: the apps that protect you from your apps

Worried about the data collected about you? A new generation of startups is making apps to put your privacy settings straight. These services have arrived to try to help normal users take control of their digital lives companies write privacy policies with lawyers. They make it harder for you to figure out how to opt out. You can opt out – you just have to know how. Companies including Disconnect.Me and Jumbo act as something like a digital concierge for their users, tweaking privacy settings, deleting sensitive data and throwing a spanner into the inner workings of surveillance capitalism.

The primary justification for the rise of privacy apps is the proliferation of settings screens in our lives and the powerful options buried within them. Web platforms are complex beasts, with sprawling networks of linked services, spin-offs and acquisitions, each of which treats users differently, has a separate place to change privacy settings and any one of which could theoretically expose some information you would rather was kept private.theguardian