Your Privacy, For Real This Time

Here's something we want to be upfront about: until recently, we didn't give you a real choice when it came to your data. Analytics ran for everyone — no opt-in, no way out. Google Analytics, Vercel Analytics, our own internal tracker. If you were on Veel, we were collecting.

That's changed. We've built a proper consent system — and when we say proper, we mean the kind that actually does something. Clicking "Decline" now blocks every tracker on the site, deletes any cookies already set, and keeps it that way across every page for every future visit. Your choice, actually respected.

Let's walk through exactly what changed — then we'll get into why any of this matters, because the internet at large has been treating user data like an all-you-can-eat buffet for a long time, and you deserve to know how bad it got.

What We Actually Changed on Veel

If you clicked "Decline" on our cookie banner now, here's what genuinely happens:

And this isn't just for the homepage. Every page on Veel now runs a tiny privacy gate script at the very top — before any tracking code gets a chance to initialise — so if you've ever declined, your decision is respected everywhere, on every page load, for as long as that preference sits in your browser.

A Brief History of the Internet Lying to Your Face

Here's the thing though: Veel doing shady cookie theatre is embarrassingly small potatoes compared to what the actual big players have gotten away with. Strap in, because the history of online privacy is genuinely one of the most brazen long cons in modern history.

Facebook & Cambridge Analytica (2018) — The one that broke everyone's brain

The real gut punch of Cambridge Analytica wasn't even the data theft. It was learning that you could take social media behaviour data, build a surprisingly accurate psychological model of a person, and then use that to serve them specifically crafted political messaging. Your Facebook likes about hiking and The Office were, apparently, enough to figure out how to manipulate your vote.

Yahoo's "small" breach (2016) — All 3 billion of them

The genuinely funny-if-it-wasn't-so-sad part is that Yahoo found this out and still managed to only knock $350 million off the Verizon sale price. Verizon bought a company whose entire user database had been stolen and still paid $4.48 billion for it. What a time to be alive.

Google tracking you in "incognito" mode (settled 2024)

The incognito mode thing is worth repeating because it's important: incognito mode only stops your device from recording your history. It does nothing to prevent websites, your ISP, or your network from seeing what you're doing. If you thought incognito meant invisible, you've been living in a fantasy, and Google was very happy to let you believe that.

The Snowden revelations (2013) — when we found out governments were at it too

The Snowden leaks fundamentally changed how a lot of people think about privacy — or at least they should have. The uncomfortable reality is that within a few years most people just... went back to using the same services and trusting the same companies. Because convenience is a hell of a drug.

TikTok's data practices (2022–ongoing)

None of this means TikTok is uniquely evil compared to American platforms — Meta and Google aren't exactly paragons of data sovereignty either. It's more that the whole industry operates on the assumption that your data is theirs to do what they want with, and the rules only matter when regulators actually enforce them.

Equifax (2017) — the breach that hurt the most

The Equifax breach is the one that genuinely frightens security professionals because unlike most data breaches you can change your password. You cannot change your Social Security number. That data is permanently compromised for 147 million people and there's nothing any of them can do about it.

Okay. So What Can You Actually Do?

Right, enough doom. Here's what the privacy community has collectively figured out actually works. We're going to go tool category by category. Pick what's relevant to your threat level — you don't need to implement all of this to meaningfully improve your privacy.

Quick Wins — Do These Today

The Reality Check

Here's the honest version: you probably can't opt out of the surveillance economy completely unless you're willing to make serious lifestyle changes. Google and Meta's infrastructure is so embedded in the web that even if you never use their products directly, you'll still have data about you collected through the sites you do visit.

But that doesn't mean doing nothing is rational. Every tool you add to your stack raises the cost of profiling you. It forces companies and bad actors to work harder. It keeps data out of breach databases. It means that when the next Cambridge Analytica happens — and there will be a next Cambridge Analytica — your data isn't in it.

Privacy isn't a binary. It's a dial. You're not trying to become a ghost. You're trying to move the dial meaningfully toward being less of a product.

And for what it's worth: we're going to keep doing right by you on Veel. No fake consent banners. No quiet tracking while pretending not to. If we track something, we'll tell you exactly what and why. If you say no, we mean it.

Thanks for reading. Go install uBlock Origin if you haven't. Seriously, do it right now, this post will still be here when you get back.