> In those cases your credit score could be based on just about anything. What you post on social media, whether you recently visited a doctor, or whether or not you live in a wealthy neighbourhood. Suddenly, your most recent Google search history, or your latest post on TikTok could influence whether you can get that loan.
It's strange to see Facebook and Google being invoked in these hypothetical examples when neither company sells user data. Big advertising companies aren't interested in releasing their proprietary user data to other companies. They sell ads on their own platform, but they don't sell user data.
Meanwhile, financial institutions openly share your personal information with "business partners" unless you opt out. The FTC has done a decent job of forcing disclosure of these data sharing arrangements and giving consumers a standard form to opt-out [1] These companies are actively selling user data as much as they can get away with, but Facebook and Google are getting demonized for something they're not even doing.
As for this blog post: It's a fine example of Betteridge's law of headlines (and yes, I know it's not actually a law).
[1] It looks like this: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/rules/privacy-con... inside of your mailed statements. You can also find it on the financial institution website if you search long enough.