HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE WATCHED BY YOUR ISP?

Someone could be watching you. Right now. Really.

There’s a camera on your phone. Another on your laptop. Not to mention the increasing likelihood, given their rising popularity, that you have a smart home security system, meaning you have at least 2 more cameras trained on you. What’s to stop a hacker from getting to see your every move?

More and more people now cover their webcams and know to guard against mobile camera hijacking. The thought of your every physical move being seen, possibly recorded, is so creepily repulsive, so Black Mirror, so viscerally repugnant, that you’re unlikely to find anyone who’d be okay with letting it happen.

Hackable cameras aren’t even the worst of it

In case you’ve been off the grid, farming organic, hydroponic lettuces and building your zombie apocalypse shelter, internet service providers (ISPs) can now sell your browsing history to the highest bidder. Which means every Google search you do, cat meme page you visit, social media feed you scroll through via phone, tablet, laptop can be collected and used to target you for advertising. Privacy: no longer protected.

This type of tracking isn’t new. Google and Facebook have built their businesses on making money by tracking us. So what’s different about letting Comcast, for example, in on the dough? One very important word: consent. With Google and Facebook, we essentially trade our information to get a free service in return. But to get access to the internet in the first place, we have to pay our ISPs. And then they want to make money from our data, on top of that.

Not cool, bro. Not cool.

So why doesn’t this invasion of privacy hit most of us in the gut the way a webcam creeper (criminal, actually) does? I think it’s because we imagine a distance that isn’t really there. So let me collapse that distance and walk you through what’s reallyhappening when you’re exposed online.

What if your ISP moved in with you? Literally.

Most of us use the internet constantly, yet think nothing of what we’re giving away.

So walk through my day with me. I mean, with me and my ISP.

My phone alarm rings. I open my eyes, and there it is: my ISP. Stubbly, bedhead-y, and totally freaking me out. (Or, if a different visualization suits you, think Single White Female.) Trying to ignore it, and before I even get out of bed, I check Facebook and Twitter, while my ISP reads over my shoulder. I like a few of my friends’ selfies, and my ISP writes that down. Check weather, read a few emails (ISP taking screenshots now), then I — we, rather — get out of bed.

My ISP gives itself a piggyback ride on me as I make my way downstairs, sits on my lap at breakfast while I read the news, always scribbling things down in its little notebook. Now I’m freaked and annoyed.

In the car on the way to work, my ISP watches the directions I use. Now I notice it’s making a call to someone else every time it writes down what I do. Who is it talking to? What is it saying? Why won’t it answer my questions? Why is it in my face? Is it going to hurt me?

Before I eat my lunch, I obviously have to post a photo of the plate to Instagram. There’s my ISP. During lunch, I catch up on NBA news, and by now my ISP is breathing on my neck, practically attached to me at the elbow.

After work and dinner, I open my laptop and pick something to binge-watch on Netflix. But it’s gotta be something I can follow while still paying bills, doing a little shopping, and then disappearing down the internet rabbit hole reading up on musicians I like, searching for upcoming cultural events, basically searching on anything and everything that pops into my head like a conspiracy theory about Avril Lavigne, pop punk star of the early 2000s, being replaced with a lookalike. Right before bed, one last YouTube video before I conk out.

By the end of the day, I get pretty tired of my ISP, so I try to crouch over my laptop, cover the screen, block its huge, wandering eyes. It’s no use, though. It sees everything.

What you can do about it

These moments represent only a fraction of the time most of us spend online every day, during which we regularly and usually unwittingly reveal information about our likes and dislikes, habits, political leanings, age, gender, weight, values, income, professional history, possessions, family, friends, products and brands we use … and on and on.

And while there isn’t literally a big, hairy ISP (or a creepy blonde one) right in your face the whole time you’re online, you really ought to imagine there is, so that you get as skeeved as you should. And then do something about it, like keep all your online activity private, which is your right, using a (surprise!) VPN.

Name of the Provider	Website Address
Hide My Ass	Visit Provider
Strong VPN	Visit Provider
Switch VPN	Visit Provider
Pure VPN	Visit Provider
IPVanish VPN	Visit Provider
Hotspot Shield Elite	Visit Provider