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Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

theguardian.com

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Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#42

The section labeled "Google has information you deleted" is a bit misleading. If files are in your "trash" they will be included in your takeout. If you clear your trash, they will not be included in your takeout (after a reasonable amount of time, if you "empty trash" then instantly go and make a new takeout bundle it might still be included). It's the same way with spam and email trash. It's given to you in your bu…

How do you know they're doing a hard delete server side and not just flipping a delete flag?

You don't.

But from what I have seen Google takes infosec very seriously, and will fully delete information when they say they delete information. They even point out that it could "linger" for (IIRC) 90 days after you delete it in backups and other replicated copies, but after that should be fully and completely deleted.

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#43

My google activity history, youtube search/watch history, and location history are all completely empty because I've disabled all of it. I would recommend going through the privacy checkup[0] to control what does and doesn't get saved. [0] https://myaccount.google.com/privacycheckup

Has there ever been any statement from anyone even remotely involved with data collection at Google on what "pausing" these collection options actually does internally? I somehow find it hard to believe that they don't just collect it anyway and only "pause" displaying inferences made using the data to you.

In a lot of cases, from my understanding, disabling storing data about "your account" just stores data about you with an anonymous identifier.

For example, voice search history you can enable or disable, if you enable it, you can see and listen to all your queries and delete them if you so choose. If you disable the history, Google still stores recordings of your voice and uses it to "improve their service", they just associate it with an anonymous identifier. The downside here, of course, is that you can't delete the copies of your voice Google is now saving despite your desire for them not to keep your history.

(I am having a hard time finding exactly where Google currently states this, but I have a high level of confidence this is how it works, as officially stated by Google, for voice activity.)

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#44
How feasible is it for Google/Facebook to infer/build profile of private browser activity?

Since most sites implement google Analytics and Facebook tracking code (ghostery is reporting both on the guardian website). They could use browser fingerprinting, which has already been proven to be extremely accurate, to augment known user profiles and data. Facebook already creates shadow profiles for people without profiles. I don't think there's any US law from making these inferences from "voluntarily" submitted information so it's perfectly plausible they would do this without telling people, no?

A more compelling argument for users to take privacy seriously would be to tell them: Hey guess what Google has the ability to know what porn you search for (yea even in your private window) since you're sending them all the data required to track you, and there's no laws in place to prohibit it.

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#45

The section labeled "Google has information you deleted" is a bit misleading. If files are in your "trash" they will be included in your takeout. If you clear your trash, they will not be included in your takeout (after a reasonable amount of time, if you "empty trash" then instantly go and make a new takeout bundle it might still be included). It's the same way with spam and email trash. It's given to you in your bu…

If the sender is on gmail, and you delete the message, does it remove it from their sent box as well? What if there are multiple recipients?

If you reported it as "not spam" and then trash it, is it removed from the "ham" training set?

If it is collected as part of a warranted intercept and you delete it, is it removed from the intercept collection as well?

If you delete an email, are any resulting changes to your personal ad profile maintained by Google reverted?

Deleting an email from all of Google is not quite so trivial as "empty your trash, and it's gone entirely".

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#47
I was actually surprised going down the list at how little Google has on me. I mean, I've used Duckduckgo for a long time and never used Android, but forgot I had turned off ad personalization and deleted youtube and search history.

I'm surprised they didn't have anything in search or youtube because I deleted the history long enough ago that I didn't remember doing it, so I've successfully stayed away from using them.

Still waiting for the data download, but I know they have all my gmail messages and some stuff I put on Drive a long time ago.

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#48

This is nonsensical: > The data Google has on you can fill millions of Word documents. > Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you. I’ve requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB big, which is roughly 3m Word documents. This link [Google Takeout] includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you’ve t…

Google has tons of data on you that isn't available in Takeout as well. (So does Facebook.) Bear in mind, these companies know which ads they've shown you and when, for example, and at least in one case, buys your credit card transaction history to compare your purchases with the ads you've seen.

> Bear in mind, these companies know which ads they've shown you and when, for example, and at least in one case, buys your credit card transaction history to compare your purchases with the ads you've seen.

Correct me if I am wrong but are you saying one of these two companies buys people's credit card transaction history and then compares people's ad history against the transaction history? If yes, that sounds really incredible.

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#49

This is nonsensical: > The data Google has on you can fill millions of Word documents. > Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you. I’ve requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB big, which is roughly 3m Word documents. This link [Google Takeout] includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you’ve t…

Google has tons of data on you that isn't available in Takeout as well. (So does Facebook.) Bear in mind, these companies know which ads they've shown you and when, for example, and at least in one case, buys your credit card transaction history to compare your purchases with the ads you've seen.

Could you please provide some examples of data that Google has on you that isn't available in Takeout?

(I'm interpreting "has on you" as meaning "not anonymized.")

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#50

The section labeled "Google has information you deleted" is a bit misleading. If files are in your "trash" they will be included in your takeout. If you clear your trash, they will not be included in your takeout (after a reasonable amount of time, if you "empty trash" then instantly go and make a new takeout bundle it might still be included). It's the same way with spam and email trash. It's given to you in your bu…

How do you know they're doing a hard delete server side and not just flipping a delete flag?

AFAIK that is already illegal in the EU, and certainly will be under the GDPR.
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