Protecting your privacy is much like security, in the sense that it's not a black or white issue. Having a lock on your door won't stop professional burglars,

Protecting your privacy is much like security, in the sense that it's not a black or white issue. Having a lock on your door won't stop professional burglars, but it implies effort and isn't the same as leaving your front door wide open, which also invites passerbys. Protecting your privacy actually has a non-negligible effect on your experience on the Internet. Let me give you an example ... I have a friend that's a T2 diabetic, is self treating and doesn't want to go to a doctor due to past bad experiences. So in trying to help him, I signed up for a Facebook group for diabetics in my area. The result is that now I'm getting commercials for treatments of diabetes. This to me is freaking scary, because this data can be used against you. Your medical history could affect your credit score for example. Your buying history or your friends list could affect the price of your insurance. Your daughter could get pregnant and the store could find out about it before you. Oh wait, these already happened. You can't escape all profiling, but the less these profiling companies know about you, the better you are. I'm using DuckDuckGo lately to search for symptoms of hypothyroidism, because apparently I suffer from it. Along with the privacy extensions I have installed (Privacy Badger, and ad-blocker with EasyPrivacy), guess what, I don't have commercials following me around on hypothyroidism, which to me is confirmation that I'm doing a good job. You can choose to not care of course. But you're probably young. Give it another decade.