New smartphone tech: Can privacy make a comeback?

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Before I end an online shopping session, I search for these three items:

-- Intake Manifold for Chevy 350 Small Block.

-- 2800mA Replacement Battery for Samsung Galaxy S5.

-- Nike Air Force 1 Mens Basketball Shoe.

I don’t want any of it. But I search for them so that the next time I open a web page in a meeting or at a coffee shop, the people around me will see follow-up ads offering those three things – and not what I really was shopping for.

I’m not trying to hide anything nefarious. It’s nothing more than a dysfunctional little stunt I devised to take back a little sliver of my ever-waning privacy. Pathetic, really.

Maybe I got a chuckle out of you. But I’ll bet my last dollar that I struck a nerve. Indeed, survey after survey says that we’re essentially freaking out about the growing mounds of data about us, and that it’s conspiring to make our privacy so darn alienable.

There’s a second-layer wrinkle here, and it’s about compartmentalizing our privacy. We all have sides that we show to some circles but conceal from others. For example, I don’t want business associates to know that on the weekends my friends and I … I’m not going to tell you!

It doesn’t even have to be on that scale. Right now, for instance, I don’t want a stray ad showing my girlfriend what I’m eyeing for her birthday. (Though I do want credit for shopping ahead.)

A couple of new Android smartphones may hold the key to regaining control over who knows what about us. Start-up Turing Robotic Industries today begins selling the Turing Phone, which the company says is both unbreakable and unhackable. Silent Circle, another young secure phone supplier, has been focusing on the compartmentalization issue. The company’s Blackphone 2, the follow-on to the start-up’s groundbreaking Blackphone, hides your personal data and apps from your work stuff, and visa versa. The Blackphone 2 will be available in September.

Silent Circle built the initial Blackphone for privacy-minded consumers, but found that enterprise buyers are far more willing to pay. So the company has been adding features to appeal to IT. This week, in fact, Silent Circle announced the Blackphone 2 will support Google’s new Android for Work program, which adds security management tools to the mobile operating system.