Why “free” apps cost more than you think… and your soul’s already in the cart.

YOU WERE SOLD BEFORE YOU ARRIVED

• According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, over 80% of popular mobile apps share data with third-party analytics services, often before you even open them.
• A 2019 WSJ study found that “mental health” and “fertility” apps leaked sensitive user data to advertisers in over half of tested cases.
• Even Apple’s “Ask App Not to Track” prompt? A Washington Post investigation showed many apps ignore it outright or use loopholes to continue background tracking.

You didn’t download the app. The app downloaded you. The second you tapped “Allow,” you handed over more than location access. You gave it your patterns, your micro-delays, your insomnia cycles, your porn breaks, your heart rate, your heartbreak.

We’ve been conditioned to call it “data.” But let’s be real: what they mean is you; chopped up, cross-referenced, shrink-wrapped, and optimized for resale.

Free apps don’t run on magic. They run on surveillance.

FREEMIUM IS A FUNNY WORD FOR EXTRACTION

• In 2013, a popular “flashlight” app was found to be harvesting users’ location data and selling it to ad networks. One of over 200 apps caught in similar practices by Google Play audits.
• TikTok was fined $368M in the EU for “systematic” misuse of children’s data. Facebook was fined $5B from the FTC. That’s not a bug; that’s payroll.

You ever notice how the sketchiest apps are always free? That’s because you’re not the customer. You’re the commodity.

That mood journal? Logs your emotional volatility like a broker watching crypto spikes.
That flashlight app? Pings GPS, Bluetooth, and mic access because apparently it needs to know your exact latitude to illuminate darkness. That AI selfie filter? Trained on your face. Banked your bone structure. Sent your eye color to a spreadsheet that’ll decide your next shampoo ad.

Sure, it’s free… if you don’t count your dignity as a subscription plan.

Nothing is free. It’s just pre-monetized. You’re the product line.

YOU AREN’T A USER — YOU’RE A TRAINING SET

• OpenAI, Meta, and Stability AI have all faced lawsuits for training on copyrighted content without consent.
• Clearview AI scraped billions of photos off the internet for facial recognition databases, all without user permission.

“Your words make it smarter” is corporate speak for “your privacy is now open source.”

Think they’re improving the app for you? That cute little AI assistant? It’s not here to help. It’s here to harvest.

Everything you type feeds the machine. Every mistake improves its mimicry. Every private thought you “just wanted help sorting out” is now sitting in a dev console as test material.

You are the worm on the hook; except the worm doesn’t pay for extra lives, unlock premium features, or beg the algorithm to be seen.

They’re not making it better. They’re making it better at exploiting you.

HOW THEY USE YOUR DATA (ONCE YOU’RE NOT LOOKING)

You know what happens to your data after it’s scraped, bundled, and sold? No? Perfect. That’s exactly how they like it.

Here are some proven examples of what’s been done with your data:

• Cambridge Analytica (2014): harvested the personal data of millions of Facebook users and used it to build “psychographic” voter profiles for targeted political advertising campaigns, including for the 2016 US presidential election. The company then used these profiles to influence voters’ behavior.
• Google (2014–2022): Google secretly recorded the movements of its users, which it then sold to advertisers for location based ad placement.
• Target (2012–present): Target uses customer purchase data to predict a pregnancy by analyzing patterns in buying habits, such as purchasing unscented lotions, specific vitamins, and supplements. An algorithm assigns a “pregnancy prediction” score to customers and can even estimate a due date. This profile is used to push coupons and deals to expectant mothers. Sometimes the customer doesn’t even know that they are pregnant!
• Amazon Ring (2022–2025): Amazon shares video from its users cameras with law enforcement, without their knowledge or consent, and without a warrant. In 2024, the company stopped this practice and required law enforcement to go through official channels and obtain a warrant. However, it reversed course in April of 2025 and again provides video without consent or warrant.

This isn’t sci-fi paranoia. It’s court records and investigations.

Once your data’s loose, it’s fair game for:

FINANCIAL DESPAIR AS A SERVICE

• AI Credit Scoring: Lenders now scrape your habits and tone to gauge creditworthiness. Not just your income; your vibes.
• Hardship Exploitation: Desperation means payday loans, crypto scams, and algorithmic sympathy.
• Dynamic Pricing: Why sell you the same thing for the same price when we can charge more because you’re stressed?
• Algorithmic Ghosting: You may never even see the better offer; your profile says “not profitable.”

MARKETING THAT KNOWS YOU BETTER THAN YOU DO

• Psychographic Manipulation: Your fears and desires mapped, monetized, and mirrored back as ads.
• Targeting the Broken: Suicidal? Dumped? There’s a campaign for that — just not the kind that helps.
• Data Necromancy: Fitness data sold to insurance brokers and wine services. You didn’t consent. Doesn’t matter.

INSURANCE, BUT MEANER

• Health Risk Scoring by TV Habits: Watching late-night cooking shows? Congrats, you’re “high risk.”
• Algorithmic Bigotry: Bought a vape once? Wrong ZIP code? That’ll be $400 extra per year.

PRIVACY SETTINGS ARE PLACEBOS

“Saying you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” — Edward Snowden

“Adjust your preferences,” they say. “Control your data,” they promise. Lies, wrapped in toggles.

Your location is “approximate.” Your consent is “implied.” Your contacts are “shared to improve service.”

You didn’t read the terms; they’re counting on that. The average EULA is longer than *Fahrenheit 451.* But instead of burning books, we burn attention spans and agree anyway.

They hide the truth behind a checkbox, and we check it like we’re clocking in to hell.

Shoshana Zuboff called this ‘surveillance capitalism’: a system that monetizes prediction, not people.

But sure, keep toggling that “personalized ads off” switch like it’s a panic button.

THIS ISN’T PARANOIA. IT’S INFRASTRUCTURE.

The data broker industry is worth over $300 billion annually, with over 4,000 active brokers in the U.S. alone. Each profile can contain up to 5,000 individual traits.

This isn’t a glitch. It’s the system.

Surveillance capitalism isn’t a threat; it’s the business model. Every tap, swipe, scroll, and sigh becomes a data point.

They’re not watching you. They’re predicting you. Profiling you. Selling you… back to yourself.

And the worst part? You already agreed to it. Somewhere between downloading the app and letting it guess your vibe, you gave away everything that made you unpredictable.

You don’t need a hacker to invade your privacy. You signed a loyalty program.

DATA HYGIENE 101: HOW NOT TO BE A BUFFET

1. Use fake data when possible — names, birthdays, phone numbers and locations are creative writing prompts, not legal documents.
2. Decline “Improve Our Product” prompts — they mean “help us sell your patterns.”
3. Reject cookies, especially third-party ones.
4. Run multiple identities and email aliases. SimpleLogin, ProtonMail, or Duck addresses work well.
5. Don’t use “Log in with Google/Facebook/Apple.” It’s one ring to rule them all.
6. Use privacy-focused browsers like hardened Firefox. Safari is ok. Chrome is surveillance in a trench-coat.
7. Use a no-logs VPN and a privacy DNS if you’re REALLY paranoid, or if you are on free wifi.
8. Review app permissions quarterly — revoke mic, camera, and GPS access.
9. Avoid creating unnecessary accounts. Do you REALLY want to see that Nytimes article enough to make a “free” account? Pretty sure you could find it somewhere else.
10. Avoid free Wi-Fi without protection.
11. Avoid “free” anything. If it’s free, you’re the raw material.

“There’s no such thing as ‘secure’ — only less screwed than average.”

SHAMELESS PLUG

THERE IS A BETTER WAY (SORT OF)

I’m not trying to save the world… just build a few small corners of the internet where you’re not the raw material.

At nullTrace Studio, I build tools that:

• Don’t harvest your data (because I don’t want it)
• Work offline (because not everything needs to phone home)
• Actually solve problems (no leaderboard required)
• Occasionally insult you (because let’s be honest, you probably deserve it)

Real utility. Zero soul theft.
Unless you count sarcasm as a soul. In which case, you’ve been warned.