ACCORDING to Malwarebytes Labs, for Data Privacy Day in 2026, Malwarebytes Senior Privacy Advocate David Ruiz is making one notable change: he has given up Google Search entirely. After requesting the data Google had collected about him, he found that it recorded 8,000 searches in 18 months, including details about shopping, home improvement, medical concerns, and when ads were clicked.
He has switched to Brave Search as his new engine, explaining why he values it and why he did not migrate to major AI platforms instead. This change is framed as a deliberate step to reduce data tied to his online behaviour and ad targeting. The article is dated 26 January 2026, and the piece highlights Ruiz’s intention to cut off the data linkage that supports Google’s advertising revenue.