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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

#91

Post by Calvin02 »

slenk wrote: post #4

But I willingly give my data to Google - they have (for some reason or another) kept my trust. Facebook broke my trust with data I didn't know they had collected.

What data does Facebook have on you that Google doesn’t collect?

Google buys your credit card purchase data. Did you give it that? Why do you think Google wants you to stay logged into Chrome?

Let’s be honest here and call a spade a spade.

The world is just realizing how ads based business models work and there’s no difference between Google and Facebook.

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

#92

Post by dnomad »

shazow wrote: post #49
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #40

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.")

There's a ton of it. This should be beyond obvious. The purpose of Takeout is to let you retrieve all the data that you have uploaded to G. You can take this data and then, perhaps, move to a competitor or even good your search engine. None of this includes or precludes the sophisticated analytics and surveillance that G performs to enrich and value-add this data. That is proprietary secret sauce stuff.

This article is just dumb clickbait. It's too bad the conversation is now being driven by rank nonsense. G, Jolie Facebook, does not sell data or profiles of you to third parties. That is what people should be focused on as a first step, the buying and selling of data.

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

#93

Post by Mc_Big_G »

blhack wrote: post #82
efdee wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be so fast to dismiss it as clickbait. Do you really think non-tech people are aware of the amount of aggregated data these companies have on them?

As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the article uses scare tactics that misrepresent what google is actually storing. They are storing your emails, for instance, and your photos. This isn't google tracking you any more than a storage unit company is stealing from you.

What percentage of users do you think fully understand that Google is literally tracking their every footstep? Yes, it's Google tracking you whether you realized it or not. Tracking is not and never has been "opt-in".

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

#94

Post by aje403 »

newshorts wrote: post #35

OMG google has been storing all my email?! Creepy, that’s what they said they would do when I opened my gmail account.

However, they have also been capturing your webcam as you type out each email. Please see document #3015698 for the top 3 most likely things you will eat for breakfast over the next week over what is most likely in your fridge right now

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

#95

Post by wu-ikkyu »

Klathmon wrote: post #64
wu-ikkyu wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I knowingly and happily give my information to Google, and I trust that they do not overstep their bounds when I tell them not to collect something. If Google ever gives me a reason to not trust them I won't. But thus far they have been okay in my mind and I'm happy with the services I received and the tradeoffs made with regard to my information. I fully expect more nastygrams and threats from people for saying this…

Do you think Google has never been hacked or compromised by an insider?

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

#96

Post by HenryBemis »

efdee wrote: post #71
danarmak wrote: post #24

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…

The Activity one is a bit scary though. How many Android users are aware that Android tracks their app use and whatnot in this fashion? I think that's a point to take home. Users know that Google looks at their "location information". In their minds, it's to provide relevant weather info and whatnot. Seeing it aggregated in this way makes you realise that you actually are sending your entire life to Google servers.

Windows 10 do for Microsoft (sucking up and sending to M$ EVERY THING you do) what Android does for Google.

Apple is a bit better (less-worse) on this. They do log many things in the background, and hopefully stopped (as they promised) to upload everything on every sync you do.

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

#97

Post by [deleted] »

Calvin02 wrote: post #91
slenk wrote: post #4

But I willingly give my data to Google - they have (for some reason or another) kept my trust. Facebook broke my trust with data I didn't know they had collected.

What data does Facebook have on you that Google doesn’t collect? Google buys your credit card purchase data. Did you give it that? Why do you think Google wants you to stay logged into Chrome? Let’s be honest here and call a spade a spade. The world is just realizing how ads based business models work and there’s no difference between Google and Facebook.

[deleted]

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

#98

Post by mrtksn »

danarmak wrote: post #24

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…

This is typical. As a techie, you're triggered by technical detail because you understand the technical details of that example that is intended to illustrate the size of the data collected.

Rest assured that this happens all the time and when people read news about a topic that they are an expert on, they cringe all the time. For example, a paraglider pilot will get triggered if the reporter uses the word "Jumped" in a story about a paraglider pilot who crash-landed and injured two more people. This is because paragliders don't jump but take off from hills etc.

Usually reporting on technical topics is very hard because you need to reach the non-technical audience so you will HAVE TO use illustrative examples and not exactly accurate descriptions so that can be absorbed by the non-technical readers. Unfortunately, this will put you in a position where can be called on by technical readers who are triggered by the "implementation details" of your story.

I do believe that calling out the 5GB illustrative example is missing the point of the article. It's just a way to portray size of the data collected on you, it doesn't have any meaning even if this data was 3Mb or 100Gb. For example, if it was 3Mb Google might have used it to convey how little data they collect on you as if the size that this data takes has any correlation about the impact, then why even bother with such an irrelevant point of the "article implementation"?

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

#99

Post by WA »

NO, NO, NO. This is not all data Facebook/Google has on me. It's way less.

What I don't get in all of this debate: People grant FB/Google/any other app access to their data and seriously expect that their data isn't harvested? IMHO, there really is zero surprise that Facebook has your call and SMS history, if you granted access to that. Or every single login timestamp.

What is way scarier is that the dump you can download is probably far from complete. My Facebook dump shows rather few items, because I'm not a heavy Facebook user. But I'm quite sure that they have A LOT more on me, because of friends uploading my phone number, profile pictures, meta data from the WhatsApp acquisition.

The big scary question is: How do you access the data in your shadow profile that they won't give to you? How do you even prove that they have more on you than they admit?

Edit: Same for Google. I don't use a Google account most of the time and I bet they STILL have my entire search history associated to some kind of shadow profile.

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

#100

Post by JepZ »

Nadya wrote: post #17

I feel a disclaimer that The Guardian uses Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager on the site to track you and help Google further track you should probably be added to a scaremongering article about Google tracking the user. I feel most technical people are aware of the level of tracking going on. The more privacy concerned do what they can to mitigate it.

Yeah, but I find it kinda hard to keep up with their development speed. Every year or so, I find out about Google having introduced a new option which is on by default and that Google has started collecting data from me again.
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