I used to work in companies which promotes usage of social media till recently that is. One of my favourite pitch is this like
DO YOU KNOW THAT OUT OF 10 PEOPLE YOU MEET EVERYDAY , 7 OF THEM WOULD EITHER LOOK FOR YOU OR YOUR BUSINESS ONLINEThe strange fact is that if you actually Google yourself , you may find things which even you didn't know it was there. From articles of you being in the papers long time ago , or perhaps a high school friend who tagged your picture .
So what is it that Google Actually knows about you ? Have you ever wondered ? If you really want to know, let me show you just a glimpse of what could be your worst nightmare if it falls into the wrong hands.
https://myactivity.google.com/
What is this ????
If you are using your android phone or even logged in to your Chrome browser, all your data or activities are being tracked.
Here is a small glimpse of what google knows , it even keeps a record of what I search and what YouTube i play. I guess its some kind of big data when used in the right way would be beneficial to you, however some advertisers would target exactly those keywords and NOW you know why you always see similar YouTube ads.
https://www.google.com/maps/timeline
Here is another tool which tracks you unknowingly by default unless you turn it off. You can actually Google how to turn it off =)
You can just select the date and you can actually see where you have gone in the past. I flew to Kota Kinabalu on Friday and I didn't have to tell Google , they just farmed all the data and just kept a record about it.
https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen
Lets not just stop at Google, as data can be collected from almost any source and website which you utilise on a daily basis. For example the most common app which almost every still use today. That is FACEBOOK ! Now if you click the link above, you will now see all the stuff which Facebook has gathered and think you may like.
That is how they manage to target specific ads just for you !
These organisation has all the details of your devices as well from IP address, web browser you are using and loads more.
Summary
So the next question , is there a way for you to stop all this tracking ? There are many many ways but then again there is a certain amount of inconveniences to be in place just to get this all to stop tracking.
YES ! you can uncheck to tell FB and Google to STOP tracking you ... but do you REALLY think that would work ? They already have your data and will still continue to harvest it even if you tell them not to.
Alternatively ! You could just use a VPN ... but that comes into the inconvenience part. I'll write about it another day ! Till then ... stay safe ! And keep your passwords tightly with you as if its in the wrong hands .... you know what kind of data people can access and look up about you.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://ourwebz.club/bitrocker2020/things-the-internet-knows-about-you/