Happy, lovely Saturday, friend! You can watch “Wicked” at home starting this Tuesday, Dec. 31. It’ll be on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube and Fandango at Home. Expect to pay $24.99 for a 48-hour rental. You can buy a digital copy, too, but no word yet on the cost. Remember when we had to go to the theater or wait months and months for VHS releases? I don’t miss that. I do still have my Blockbuster card, though.

🫡 Now, on to the smarts you need to stay tech-ahead and never tech-behind. Glad to see you with me each and every day! — Kim

If you have a pulse and an internet connection, companies want all the details they can get about what you're willing to buy. Now that your holiday shopping is done, it’s time to take back control.

There’s a bit of work you can do and then to reclaim your privacy, but if you’re looking for a longer-term solution, I’ll share my secret weapon in the fight against tracking.

‘The Way We Were’

This appropriately titled hit song by Barbra Streisand, released in late 1973, was still a chart-topper in June 1974, when the Universal Product Code (UPC) hit grocery and department stores.

Before UPCs, retailers could decide prices based on things like race, gender, or whether the store clerk liked you or not. Could you imagine going to Walmart and hoping the cashier thought you were cool? Sheesh.

But the introduction of barcodes brought retailers an even bigger benefit: They could use them to track what you bought so they could influence your purchasing habits. Yep, Big Brother's been watching you in Aisle 5 for decades. UPCs were just the beginning.

The methods are many

We love to blame the digital age for targeted ads, but retailers already had a ton of consumer data by the time the internet came around. It only helped them step up their game a ton.

Take back your (purchasing) power

Tracking is unavoidable, but there are ways to protect your privacy. Use these tips to feel less watched and more sane:

And finally, browse in Incognito mode to keep your website history from being stored and reported to ad networks.

Stop this info-selling at the source

I call Incogni my privacy secret weapon. This service finds all the sketchy people-search and data-broker sites where your personal information is listed and submits requests to remove it.

👉 Incogni has removed me from 981 sites and put me on 40 suppression lists so I stay off. All told, Incogni’s saved me an estimated 735 hours and 45 minutes. If you go the DIY route, prepare to remove yourself from the same sites over and over.

✅ Ready to take back your privacy? I negotiated a 60% discount on Incogni just for you. If you don’t like the results, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

🕺 3, 2, 1 … Make it count!

Ever wonder who’s behind scam rings? The Wall Street Journal just published a great story about a giant pig-butchering scam operation (paywall link) in the Philippines run by the former mayor of a town 60 miles north of Manila. Alice Guo had thousands of workers scamming people, including Americans. She swindled millions from mostly retirees to pay for fancy cars, designer goods and a helicopter. Now, the 34-year-old is facing human trafficking and corruption charges. I hope she rots in jail.

🙃 Smile for the bot: A new AI tool calculates your biological age by looking at your face. Created by cancer doc Raymond Mak, FaceAge spots signs of aging by analyzing wrinkles and skin texture. Mak’s team says it’s even better than doctors at predicting your life expectancy. Your next annual exam might include a photo opp. I wonder how it deals with Botox.

Life Skills 101: Gen Zers grew up with apps and cards, not cash. That’s why you might have trouble paying for items if you get a 20-something cashier. More often than not, they think bills are counterfeit. Know someone born between 1997 and 2012? Tell them no one really counterfeits $5, $10, $20 or $50 bills — only $100s! Meanwhile, a new study proves handing over cash gives you a “sting” you don’t feel with an app. Want to keep your spending in check? Use cash. No wonder Gen Z is so in debt.

🗣️ “Hey, Alexa”: The voice of Amazon’s smart assistant doesn’t belong to actress Kristen DiMercurio, and she wants to make sure others know it. She’s heard on over 8,000 projects and is often mistaken for Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant. Her TikTok video about the mix-up (and the real Big Tech voices) has racked up nearly 28 million views. She’s got skills.

The opposite of artificial intelligence is natural stupidity: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just teased new ChatGPT features coming in 2025, including family accounts, improved voice mode and a “grown-up” version without the content guardrails. That last one frightens me; there’s already a problem with AI-generated child porn.

⚰️ “Obituary pirating”: If you look up someone in your life who recently passed, you just might see random YouTube videos of someone reading their obituary. Video creators are doing it to make a few ad bucks. Aren’t you glad to be ahead of the rest? I told you about this a year ago, and now the mainstream media’s picking it up.

“The biggest influencer scam of all time”: That’s what YouTuber MegaLad calls the coupon browser extension Honey, which PayPal bought for $4 billion in 2020. He says they’ve been deceiving shoppers and influencers for years by ignoring coupon options and hijacking links through sneaky pop-ups. Watch the vid here. While I’m researching to see if this is true, I uninstalled Honey and you should, too. I’ll let you know what I find out.

📻 A face for radio: Catch my award-winning show this weekend. I’m on over 510 stations across the USA! Find your local station and tune in, or get my show’s podcast so you can listen anytime, anywhere.

If you haven’t yet this year: Get your free credit report before 2024 ends. Go to AnnualCreditReport.com or call 1‑877‑FACTACT (1‑877‑322‑8228). New freebie coming soon: My complete guide to credit-reporting mistakes you should be watching for.

📺 Psst! Most newer TVs have a secret menu: Turn on your TV and press the menu button on your remote. Go to the settings or advanced settings menu. Press the following buttons on your remote in this order: Mute, 1, 8, 2, power. This should bring up the service menu. From here, you can more accurately adjust the white balance, do a factory reset, refine the color levels or calibrate the screen.

A note in my inbox this week: “Are password managers safe to use? What if someone gets in?” You’re smart to ask, and it’s the reason you need to be very picky about what you trust. My pick, NordPass,* has military-grade encryption so no one is getting in when they shouldn't be.

🔦 Bright idea: Apple iOS 18 lets you customize your iPhone’s lock screen and choose different defaults than the camera and flashlight. Long press your screen > Customize > Lock Screen. Remove any button with the – (minus sign) and hit the + (plus icon) to replace it. Tap Done (upper-right corner) to finish making it more “you.”

Wait, what? You can reread that Android notification you didn't fully look at the first time. Head to your Settings and tap Notifications > Notification History to view that push alert.

50% off: Using AI in your business is expensive. Take a free test drive of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure now at Oracle.com/kim* to see if they can cut your bill in half. Hurry, this offer ends on Dec. 31, 2024.

This is incredible. Police used a heat-seeking drone to find a 78-year-old man with dementia who went missing on a cold day.

Need something to watch this weekend? We spend days scrolling streaming services for something to watch. I talked about it the other day in my “Daily Tech Update,” heard on almost 400 radio stations.

My favorite streaming shows this year were “Yellowstone,” “Shōgun,” “Only Murders in the Building” and a few others I can’t remember at this moment, so they’re not worth mentioning to you here. Right now, I’m watching “Carry-On” on Netflix, and I really like it.

That reminds me … Sylvester Stallone: “I’m making a movie about composers. I’m playing Vivaldi.” Jean-Claude Van Damme: “I’ll be Mozart.” Arnold Schwarzenegger: “Stop it, guys. I’m not saying it.”

👋 I hope you have an incredible Saturday. The next time you look at yourself in the mirror, say aloud, “I am so tech-smart, I can’t stand it!” See you tomorrow with another issue of the best tech newsletter in the USA! — Kim