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

theguardian.com

51–60 of 185 posts

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

#51
Kind of shitty that they didn't mention that you can delete the data from your Google account and disable further data collection (at least for the stuff mentioned in the article). I guess that would have made the article more informative and less scary.

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

#52

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 pe…

> 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?

Obviously google won't "unsend" email, they aren't a DRM platform that will delete data anywhere that anyone you have ever shared it will has ever sent it.

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

But things like "spam" email will be "unlinked" from your account at the very least, and possibly fully deleted (does information "learned" from a spam email count as that email in your mind? If they use a neural-net to train spam filtering does that become "your data" when it learns from something of yours?)

But regardless, I didn't want to get into internet arguments about what the big companies might possibly be doing through a shitload of what-if's. I just wanted to point out that the reason the author of the blog had 'deleted' things in their takeout was because they were in the trash, and the trash wasn't emptied...

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

#53
...and once again, an article that could have actually gone in depth on this topic, manages to leave out the data these companies collect and purchase from third parties (e.g. credit card transactions) and public records.

An accurate title for this piece would have been "This is all of the data Facebook and Google are willing to tell you they have on you"

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

#54

Are you ready? Hold onto your seats folks! This is an article whose aim is to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt.

It's funny, I bet Google is glad this article is out there. Look how easy they make it to see "everything" they know about "you". And you can delete it if you want!

When they are thinking about this article, no one will worry that you can't see any profile they have for you when you aren't logged in.

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

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hopefully they so take infosec as seriously as you assume they do.

However, we have repeatedly seen profits prioritized over security in the corporate world with negligible repercussions when the data is inevitably compromised.

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

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 real…

Straight from the horse's mouth: https://adwords.googleblog.com/2017/05/powering-ads-and-anal...

"And even if your business doesn’t have a large loyalty program, you can still measure store sales by taking advantage of Google’s third-party partnerships, which capture approximately 70% of credit and debit card transactions in the United States."

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

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 real…

Yes, both Google and Facebook do exactly that.

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

#59

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.

Which is why it would be reasonable to write an article about those things (with evidence). The article linked here is pointing to completely normal and desirable behavior and seems to hope readers won't notice.

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

#60
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.")

I provided an example in the comment already, and in a child comment, I've now linked to a Google source where they state the data they are getting. And of course, to connect the credit card data they are buying with the Google accounts they are showing ads to, they have to be able to associate a given credit card transaction with a given Google user account.
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