I’ve long enjoyed collecting ads that attempt to market privacy. Here are some of the highlights of my collection. Please be sure to read to the end, as there are many great video ads, which find ways to tell stories and make arguments for privacy that resonate with the public.
Early Telephone Privacy Ads
This ad from the early 1912 features the privacy dimensions of automatic telephone service.
The ad below is from 1918.
Rail Travel Privacy Ads
Apparently, private train travel seemed to have been a big deal in the mid 20th century. This magazine ad from 1938 advertises private single occupancy train travel.
Here’s a Santa Fe ad from 1950.
Anti-Gossip WWII Propaganda Ads
A series of ads during WWII warned people to avoid gossip. These ads weren’t really about protecting privacy; they aimed primarily to stop the spread of any information that could hurt the war effort.
IBM’s Four Principles of Privacy Ad (1974)
This IBM ad from 1974 ran in Scientific American. It states several of the Fair Information Practice Principles.
IBM’s Computer Privacy Ad (1980)
In 1980, IBM ran a print ad about privacy and security: “Just between you, me, and the computer.” The ad stated: “There’s information about you in a computer somewhere, Probably in several computers.” That’s certainly an understatement today . . .
“All these things require information about you,” the ad later says, “and you’re concerned about how safe it all is in a computer system. So are we. At IBM, we think computers should be as good at protecting information as they are at processing it.”
Sadly, the words of this ad haven’t turned out to be true in today’s world.
IBM’s Privacy Begins at Home Ad (1980)
Another IBM ad for privacy in 1980 has a framed textile that says “Privacy Begins at Home.” The ad starts: “Personal privacy. Everyone wants it. Everyone believes in it. And with so much personal information being stored in computers and other files, it’s been of continuing concern to us at IBM.”
ACLU’s Scary Pizza Ad
This ad by the ACLU (2004) features a guy trying to order a pizza in the future, which then was designated as 2015. It’s now one of the most famous ads about privacy, and much of the dystopia it predicated has come true.
For a 10-year retrospective about the ad, see here.
DuckDuckGo’s None of Your Business Ad
This 2022 DuckDuckGo ad states: “Your life. Your hopes. Your passions. These things are none of our business. Your deodorant rash. Your favorite cheese and whatever you are searching for at 1:15 am. That’s really none of our business. Because your life is private and unlike other tech companies we think your internet should be too. Oh what kind of dog is that that’s none of our business either.”
DuckDuckGo’s Watching You Ad
This DuckDuckGo ad (2022) features a modified cover of the Police’s “Every Breath You Take.” The song is sung by a creepy guy in a Google T-shirt watching people as they use their email.
Apple’s Privacy That’s iPhone Ad Campaign
Apple ran a brilliant ad campaign of print and video ads for the iPhone. Many of the TV ads wonderful.
Apple’s Privacy Interrogation Ad
In this Apple ad (2025), a person is being interrogated about his life. The interrogator pulls out the guy’s phone in an evidence bag and says he can find out everything from the phone. But then the interrogator realizes it’s an iPhone and becomes despondent and drops it.
In this Apple ad for app tracking transparency (2021), people look over a person’s shoulder while he browses the internet on his phone. They follow him around everywhere.
The song “Mind Your Own Business” by Delta 5 plays in the background. The song lyrics begin:
Can I have a taste of your ice cream?
Can I lick the crumbs from your table?
Can I interfere in your crisis?No, mind your own business
No, mind your own business
The song continues later:
Can you hear those people behind me?
Looking at your feelings inside me
Listen to the distance between us
Why don’t you mind your own business?
Why don’t you mind your own business?
Eventually, the guy switches to not track, and the people tracking him go poof.
Apple’s Anti-Flock Ad
An Apple ad critiquing Flock (2024) has surveillance cameras flying around watching people. Creepy cameras that look like birds and bats follow people around and disturb them.
In the end (spoiler alert!) people press Safari on their iPhones and the cameras blow up.
Apple’s Privacy Matters Ad
This Apple ad (2019) features a montage of scenes where people display a desire for privacy, from keep out to do not disturb signs to people pausing conversations when others are around or slam doors.
In one scene, a man walks into a bathroom and heads far away from another guy at the urinals.
The ad ends with the quote: “If privacy matters in your life, it should matter to the phone you’re on.”
Apple’s Data Auction Ad
This Apple data auction ad (2022) is one of my favorites. It features a person who discovers a secret room where her data is being auctioned off.
The auctioneer begins: “Lot number 1, her emails. The one she’s opened and read . . . wonderfully personal. Let’s start at 240.”
Lot #2 is her personal hygiene products. Then it’s location data. The auctioneer says “it’s not creepy, it’s commerce.”
Various other personal data is auctioned until she presses a do not track button on her iPhone, and then everyone at the auction goes poof.
The ad ends with the quote: “It’s your data. iPhone helps keep it that way.”
Apple’s Privacy – Simple as That Ad
This more contemplative Apple ad (2020) begins by saying “Right now, there’s more private information on your phone than in your home.”
Apple’s Oversharing Information Ad
This Apple ad (2020) has people publicly announcing what they are browsing and saying in texts as well as other private information.
The ad ends by saying: “Some things shouldn’t be shared. iPhone helps keep it that way.”
Apple’s Health Privacy Waiting Room Ad
This Apple health privacy ad (2023) begins by a man entering a doctor’s waiting room, with a narrator saying: “The man with the troublesome hemorrhoid enters the room.”
The narrator proceeds to divulge health data about others in the room. The ad ends with the text: “Health data shouldn’t be public. The Health app helps keep it private.”
Apple App Tracking Transparency Prompt Ad
This Apple ad discusses its app tracking transparency prompt (2022). It has Apple’s trademark simplicity.
Samsung’s You’re In Control Ad
This Samsung ad (2022) discusses protecting privacy from apps. It focuses on how the Samsung privacy dashboard gives people control over their data.
Data Commissioner of Ireland’s Pause Before You Post Ad
The Data Commissioner of Ireland made this creepy but powerful ad (2025) where parents walk around a mall with their young daughter and various people say hi to her and talk about her personal data. The message of the ad is to advise parents to pause before they post about their children.
Direct TV’s The Settlers Privacy Ad
This Direct TV ad from 2016 features old settlers with a TV.
The ad urges viewers to switch from cable to Direct TV. A man pulls back a curtain to reveal a guy in a bathtub in the middle of the living room. “If it weren’t for wires, how would cousin Tobias get his privacy?”
What’s App’s Message Privately Ad
This What’s App ad (2022) discusses its private messaging.
Throughout the ad, as people message, other people around them disappear and window shades drop down.
Apple’s Macintosh Ad
This SuperBowl ad from 1984 wasn’t really about privacy, but it used imagery evoking Orwell’s 1984 with a person rebelling against the tyranny of other computer manufacturers. It’s one of the most famous ads ever made, and it’s a terrific one, so how can I not include it?
It aired during the Super Bowl and lasted one minute. Ridley Scott, whose film, Blade Runner, had been released about a year prior, was director of photography.
In the commercial, a leader spoke to an audience from a gigantic screen. The person hailed the “first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives” and hailed how they had “created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology—where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory thoughts.”
A woman raced toward the screen as she was being chased by officers. She hurled a sledgehammer at the screen, destroying it.
The ad stated: “On January 24th, Apple will introduce the Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 will not be like 1984.”
Orwell’s estate sent a cease and desist letter, threatening a copyright lawsuit. The commercial never aired again.
Related Post
For some commercials in the opposite direction, ones that unwittingly show us a future dystopia but that are tone deaf about it, see my post: Three TV Commercials Show What’s Wrong with Big Tech, Privacy, and AI.
* * * *
Professor Daniel J. Solove is a law professor at George Washington University Law School. Through his company, TeachPrivacy, he has created the largest library of computer-based privacy and data security training, with more than 180 courses.
Subscribe to Solove’s Free Substack
A supplement to Solove’s regular newsletter with more in-depth discussions
