I view our current scenario with respect to privacy the same as I did prior to all the craziness of the past week. I recommend the same things as I did before, but of course each person's tactics should be specific to their own situation and risk profile. Nothing has really changed in my opinion - it's just that these tech companies have finally decided to take external actions that match their internal intentions. They're still the same privacy-invading, mind-controlling entities they were before.
I think what may change is the level of effort and expense the average person is willing to put into their privacy. My general experience when talking about privacy with people has been that the general concept would be received and understood, but the amount of action any given person would put in was usually zero. The problem was not tangible enough. Now that the problem is becoming tangible, I wonder if people will start to take action.
If you want to decrease the convenience and ease of your online experience and in turn increase your personal privacy, then I recommend you follow the advice I outlined in the forum thread that MashedTaters linked above. If you want to go a step further, I can also recommend the following:
- Assume that big tech companies are buying your credit card purchase data and correlating with the profiles they otherwise have about you. Even if you do not use social media, assume that social media companies are still tracking everything you buy and everything you do online. Assume the same for governments. Consider using separate credit cards for online purchases vs in-person purchases.
- If you want a purchase to be private, do not use a credit card. Use cash or use a private cryptocurrency like Monero.
- Assume that your internet providers (home, work and mobile) are profiling everything you do online and selling that data to 3rd parties. Consider using a privacy-oriented VPN service like Mullvad that does not keep logs of your internet activity.