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Surprising Science

Why People will Pay for Privacy Tools

Finding out that Facebook still tracks them when logged out has driven many users to use the Google Chrome extension Disconnect to help protect their privacy.

What’s the Latest Development?

Facebook Disconnect is the Google Chrome extension which has grown significantly in popularity over recent weeks amid growing concerns about the information Facebook collects on i’s users–and what it does with it. Earlier this month, over 85,000 people installed their extensions ‘Disconnect’ and ‘Facebook Disconnect’.

What’s the Big Idea?

Disconnect co-founder Casey Oppenheim says we’re in the beginnings of the pay-for-privacy era. “People realise more and more that all these ‘free’ services aren’t really free—we pay with our data. Our data has a price and I think people will pay for awesome tools that help them control their data. Locked down, private browsers are certainly an intriguing idea. But building—and maintaining—a browser is no small feat.”

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