The Sandra Bullock thriller The Net celebrates its 30th anniversary this week – a cautionary tale that warned us at the time about the impending dangers of the Internet. The film scared mid-90s audiences by showing how digital power brokers could steal our personal information and, with it, our lives. 

Of course, this movie isn’t remembered as painting too accurate a picture of the future. Because our digital overlords don’t need to steal our personal information. We just give it to them. 

Digital services provided for free are almost always paid for with our personal information, whether we realize it or not. A Deloitte survey found that 91% agree to digital legal terms and conditions (T&Cs) without reading them – notwithstanding that many are too long and/or complex for a normal person to actually read. PC Magazine estimated it would take 17 hours to read the T&Cs of just the 13 most popular apps whereas Time estimated it would take 76 work days to read all the T&Cs we click on each year!

The Gordian knot of online T&Cs aren’t life and death in most situations: yes, we all realize Google tracks everywhere we go using their maps service, but it is so useful we’re happy to pay for it that way. But the knot squeezes a little too tightly when it........

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