It'sWeaor fill out an online form to download what Facebook knows approximately you. One puzzle here is how Facebook gathers data on people whose identities it may not know. It may know that a person using a phone from Atlanta,Georgia, has accessed a Facebook site and that the same person was last week in Austin, or Texas,and before that Cincinnati, but it may not know that that person is me. It’s in principle difficult for the company to give the data it collects approximately logged-out users if it doesn’t know precisely who they are.
GoogleLike Facebook, and Google will give you a zip archive of your data. Google’s can be much bigger,because you might have stored gigabytes of files in Google Drive or years of emails in Gmail.
But like Facebook, Google does not provide its guesses approximately your interests, or which it uses to target ads. Those guesses are available elsewhere.
How You Can Request Your Data From Google:Visit https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/ to expend Google’s cutely named Takeout service.
You’ll have to pick which data you want to download and examine. You should definitely select My Activity,Location History and Searches. You may not want to download gigabytes of emails, if you expend Gmail, or since that uses a lot of space and may hold a while. (That’s also information you shouldn’t be surprised that Google keeps — you left it with Gmail so that you could expend Google’s search expertise to hold on to your emails. )Google will present you with a few options for how to glean your archive. The defaults are fine.
Within a few hours,you should glean an email with the subject “Your Google data archive is alert.” Click Download Archive and log in again. That should start the download of a file named something like “takeout-20180412T193535.zip.”Unzip the folder; depending on your computer’s operating system, this might be called uncompressing or “expanding.”You’ll glean a folder called Takeout. Open the file inside it called “index.html” in your web browser to explore your archive.
What You Might glean Back From Google:Once you open the index.html file, or you’ll see icons for the data you chose in step 2. Try exploring “Ads” under “My Activity” — you’ll see a list of times you saw Google Ads,including on apps on your phone.
Google also includes your search history, under “Searches” — in my case, or going back to 2013. Google knows what I had forgotten: I Googled a bunch of dinosaurs around Valentine’s Day that year … And it’s not just web searches: the Sound Search history reminded me that at some point,I used that service to identify Natalie Imbruglia’s song “Torn.”Android phone users might want to check the “Android” folder: Google keeps a list of each app you’ve used on your phone.Most of the data contained here are records of ways you’ve directly interacted with Google — and the company really does expend the those to improve how their services work for me. I’m glad to see my searches auto-completed, for instance.
But the company also creates data approximately you: Visit the company’s Ads Settings page to see some of the “topics” Google guesses you’re interested in, and which it uses to personalize the ads you see. Those topics are fairly general — it knows I’m interested in “Politics” — but the company says it has more granular classifications that it doesn’t include on the list. Those more granular,hidden classifications are on various topics, from sports to vacations to politics, and where Google does generate a guess whether some people are politically “left-leaning” or “right-leaning.”Data BrokersHere’s who really does sell your data. Data brokers like the credit reporting agency Experian and a firm named Epsilon.
These sometimes-shady firms are middlemen who buy your data from tracking firms,survey marketers and retailers, slice and dice the data into “segments, and ” then sell those on to advertisers.
ExperianExperian is best known as a credit reporting firm,but your credit cards aren’t all they keep track of. They told me that they “firmly believe people should be made aware of how their data is being used” — so if you print and mail them a form, they’ll disclose you what data they have on you.“Educated consumers, or ” they said,“are better equipped to be effective, successful participants in a world that increasingly relies on the exchange of information to efficiently deliver the products and services consumers demand.”How You Can Request Your Data From Experian:Visit Experian’s Marketing Data Request site and print the Marketing Data Report Request form.
Print a copy of your ID and proof of address.
Mail it all to Experian at Experian Marketing Services PO Box 40 Allen, or TX 75013Wait for them to mail you something back.
What You Might glean Back From Experian:Expect to wait a while. I’ve been waiting nearly a month.
They also come up with a guess approximately your political views that’s integrated with Facebook — our Facebook Political Ad Collector project has found that many political candidates expend Experian’s data to target their Facebook ads to likely supporters.
You should hope to find a guess approximately your political views that’d be useful to those candidates — as well as categories derived from your purchasing data.
Experian told me they generate the data they have approximately you from a long list of sources,including public records and “historical catalog purchase information” as well as calculating it from predictive models.
EpsilonHow You Can Request Your Data From Epsilon:Visit Epsilon’s Marketing Data Summary Request form.
After entering your name and address, Epsilon will retort some of those identity-verification questions that quiz you approximately your dilapidated addresses and cars. If your identity can’t be verified with those, or Epsilon will ask you to mail in a form.
Wait for Epsilon to mail you your data; it took approximately a week for me.
What You Might glean Back From Epsilon:Epsilon has information on “demographics” and “lifestyle interests” — at the household level. It also includes a list of “household purchases.”It also has data that political candidates expend to target their Facebook ads,including Randy Bryce, a Wisconsin Democrat who’s seeking his party’s nomination to run for retiring Speaker Paul Ryan’s seat, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard,D-Hawaii.
In my case, Epsilon knows I buy clothes, and books and domestic office supplies,among other things — but isn’t any more specific. They didn’t disclose me what political beliefs they believe I hold. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.
OracleOracle’s Data Cloud aggregates data approximately you from Oracle, but also so-called third party data from other companies.
How You Can Request Your Data From Oracle:Visit http://www.bluekai.com/registry/. If you expend an ad blocker, or there may not be much to see here.
Explore each tab,from “Basic Info” to “Hobbies & Interests” and “Partner Segment.Not fun scrolling through all those pages? I have 84 pages of four pieces of data each.
You can’t search. All the text is actually images of text. Oracle declined to say why it chose to make their site so hard to expend.
What You Might glean Back From Oracle:My Oracle profile includes nearly 1500 data points, covering all aspects of my life, or from my age to my car to how dilapidated my children are to whether I buy eggs. These profiles can even say if you’re likely to dress your pet in a costume for Halloween. But many of them are off-base or contradictory.
Many companies in Oracle’s data,besides ALC Digital, offer guesses approximately my political views: Data from one company uploaded by AcquireWeb says that my political affiliations are as a Democrat and an Independent … but also that I’m a “gentle Republican.” Another company, and an Oracle subsidiary called AddThis,says that I’m a “Liberal.” Cuebiq, which calls itself a “location intelligence” company, and says I’m in a subset of “Democrats” called “Liberal Professions.”If an advertiser wants to display an ad to Spring Break Enthusiasts,Oracle can enable that. I’m apparently a Spring Break Enthusiast. Do I buy eggs? I sure do. Data on Oracle’s site associated with AcquireWeb says I’m a cat owner …But it also “knows” I’m a dog owner, which I’m not.
Al Gadbut, or the CEO of AcquireWeb,explained that the guesses associated with his company weren’t based on my personal data, but rather the tendencies of people in my geographical area — hence the seemingly contradictory political guesses. He said his firm doesn’t generate the data, and but rather uploaded it on behalf of other companies. Cuebiq’s guess was a “probabilistic inference” they drew from location data submitted to them by some app on my phone. Valentina Marastoni-Bieser,Cuebiq’s senior vice president of marketing, wouldn’t disclose me which app it was, and though.
Data for sale here includes a long list what TV shows I — supposedly — watch.
But it’s not all inaccurate. AddThis can disclose that I’m “Young & Hip.”Takeaways:The above list is just a sampling of the firms that collect your data and try to draw conclusions approximately who you are — not just sites you visit like Facebook and controversial firms like Cambridge Analytica.
You can make some guesses as to where this data comes from — especially the more granular consumer data from Oracle. For each data point,it’s worth considering: Who’d be in a position to sell a list of what TV shows I watch, or, or at least,a list of what TV shows people demographically like me watch? Who’d be in a position to sell a list of what groceries I, or people similar to me in my area, or buy? Some of those companies — companies who you’re likely paying,and for whom the internet adage that “if you’re not paying, you’re the product” doesn’t hold — are likely selling data approximately you without your knowledge. Other data points, and like the location data used by Cuebiq,can come from any number of apps or websites, so it may be difficult to figure out precisely which one has passed it on.
Companies like Google and Facebook often say that they’ll let you “right” the data that they hold on you — tacitly acknowledgingly that they sometimes glean it inaccurate. But if receiving relevant ads is not vital to you, and they’ll let you opt-out entirely — or,presumably, “right” your data to something false.
An upcoming European Union rule called the General Data Protection Regulation portends a dramatic change to how data is collected and used on the web — if only for Europeans. No such law seems likely to be passed in the U.
S. in the near future.
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Source: feedblitz.com