Introducing The Privacy Bundles
When we were first thinking about creating The Privacy Co., our goal was to figure out how to help people protect their privacy. It wasn’t initially obvious exactly how we could do that. The loss of privacy due to technology is a large, diffuse problem.
Ultimately, we concluded that people need to do three things:
- Change Settings – Every device and app and service they use has opt’d them into sharing data in often obscene ways, but many provide options to opt-out that weren’t well understood or broadly used. The simple act of optimizing settings can have a huge impact.
- Modify behaviors – We all volunteer to share and expose a huge amount of data because we don’t know we’re doing it. We live in a world of ‘dark patterns’ meant to confuse and lure us to share, but awareness of the issue and risks allows us to make vastly better choices and severely limit the unintended flow of our data.
- Add tools – Our digital lives are complex and our privacy and security is put at risk in many ways. A range of fantastic software and services have been built to help protect us – these include password managers, ad blockers, encryption programs, and many others. It’s unfortunate that you need a full toolbox to protect yourself, but the fact is you do.
We developed the Priiv app to tacking the first two, delivering a personalized Privacy Path and other ways to let you know what settings to change and provide information to help users protect themselves as they move through the world.
Priiv also introduces our favorite privacy tools across about a dozen categories, including links to learn more about them and often to install them. And on ThePrivacy.com, we’ve written dozens of articles about how to think about and buy various kinds of privacy software, and longer product overviews of many of our favorites. This was all designed to make choosing and buying privacy software easier, but we know it’s not enough.
Buying Privacy Software is Hard
Choosing and using the right privacy software and services is *really* important. But it’s hard to select and then buy these tools.
The categories are complicated, the tools are complex, and most people don’t have the time or interest in researching, comparing, and deciding. They need expert advice, direct recommendations, and a simplified purchase process or they’re never going to get these purchased and installed. And if they’re not purchased and installed, they can’t protect you.
So we’re introducing “The Privacy Bundles” from The Privacy Co.
We’ve done the research, we’ve picked our best tools, and we’ve made it fast and easy for anyone to purchase them. And we’ve negotiated with all of the leading vendors to make it possible to make a single purchase and get the best while also enjoying considerable savings. And we’re going to help those who buy from us to make sure they get the most from their new software. With our own content to make it easier to install, to setup, to get used to, and to maximize protection. Articles, videos, webinars, and ongoing tips and information – both in the Priiv app and on ThePrivacy.com.
Trusting Our Recommendations
We recognize that our choosing partners and selling privacy software directly may, for some, raise the question of our impartiality in making other more general privacy recommendations. There has been so much unscrupulous marketing and insincere promotion over the last few years (perhaps even decades) that questioning integrity is often the default assumption. We understand.
So we’re doing two things to retain your trust; first, we’re going to explain exactly why we think you (or anyone) should trust us, and second, we’re building a system so that you won’t have to trust us at all.
Why Should You Trust Us
All of us here at The Privacy Co., and particularly the founders and senior team, are passionate privacy freaks, who have lived the ethos or hardcore personal privacy for years. We’ve spent years researching and implementing the actions and tools we recommend and it would personally offend us to promote any techniques, tools, or services we didn’t both use ourselves and regularly recommend to family and friends. We genuinely care about our mission.
More practically, we have our choice of essentially any tool on the market for our bundles. Of all the companies we approached to become partners, we’ve only been turned down only once – by a firm that is too small to want to have any marketing or reseller partners. We have had the option of choosing the tools we believe are the best, and we have. We’re very pleased and proud that these well known, well reviewed, software companies want to partner with us.
It should be said, that in several of these categories there are multiple fantastic choices, but we can’t partner with everyone and so in some cases we’re starting with a single partner but may add more options as we scale. Within the Priiv App and on ThePrivacy.com we will continue to cover and recommend and describe the benefits of tools which are not included in our bundles, and with which we have no business relationship or economic incentives. Our only editorial guide is the best products.
The Privacy Advisory Board
Despite the above, we think it would be better if you didn’t have to trust that our bundles include only the best privacy tools. And so starting in Q1, 2021 you won’t have to.
The Privacy Co. is currently putting together a Privacy Advisory Board composed of independent and respected privacy and security industry experts – and starting in Q1 2021 all of our product recommendations will be decided by that board.
We will have staff members of The Privacy Co. on the board, but we will hold less than 20% of the seats. In order for any app or service to earn a ‘recommended status’ it will have to garner support from the overall board, or we won’t recommend it or include it in any of our bundles. We’ll release more details as to our methods when the full board is announced.
The names of our Advisor Board will be public, and advisory board members will be compensated with a small equity interest in The Privacy Co. But they will have no direct visibility into or compensation based on the performance of our software sales or referrals.
Generating Revenue
Offering paid privacy software bundles also provides The Privacy Co. with an important revenue stream to enable us to be a sustainable business. We like the idea that our success is tied to delivering privacy solutions that give people privacy, security, and value – over time.
Conclusion
In the end, we do not see a conflict between being a trusted partner to our clients and being a partner and reseller of privacy software and services. Our clarity of mission, integrity, transparency, and hard work will continue to make clear that we’re putting everyone’s privacy and security at the forefront of every effort and decision.
