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Google's My Activity Reveals How Much It Knows About You (theguardian.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the optional-tools dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Google has released a new section to Google's account settings, called My Activity, which lets users review everything that Google has tracked about their online behavior -- search, YouTube, Chrome, Android, and every other Google service. Best of all, users can edit or delete their tracked behaviors. In addition, the My Activity tools come with new ad preferences. Google is now offering to use its behavioral information to tailer ads shown across the wider non-Google internet and Google's search pages, which until now was purely done through the use of cookies. The difference between Google and other companies that offer ads like Facebook is that Google is making this interest-based advertising extension optional, or opt-in, not opt-out. There are two separate behavioral advertising settings for users to switch on or off: signed in ads and signed out ads. Signed in ads are those on Google services, and signed out ads are those served by Google on third-party sites. However, if you're conscious about your privacy, you'll probably want to stay opted out.

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  1. Google vs Facebook, etc. by theskipper · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I may be naive and eventually end up with egg on my face but here goes. In today's world we all know the horse has left the gate wrt privacy. It seems the issue now isn't who's collecting the data, it's what happens to your data after it's been scooped up. And what keeps the data from escaping comes down to the question of how that data is being exploited for generating revenue.

    Google gets a lot of flack around here but if you follow the money, they have a pretty good incentive to do whatever it takes to keep the tracking data high-quality and most definitely in-house. Mainly because they own the search market and the better the ad targeting, the more protected Alphabet's revenue stream is.

    Apple is obviously dependent on hardware sales so not much needs to be said about that. Plus they really don't want bad PR from data escaping.

    So let's compare that to the other 800lb gorilla(s). I don't see any reason why Facebook, Pinterest, etc. wouldn't incorporate outright sale of their tracking data to third parties (if they don't ship it out the back door already). Sure, they're dependent on ad/affiliate revenue too but with one other important difference. Google has an (effective) search monopoly where data exposure would stir up a hornet's nest of legal issues directly or indirectly.

    Facebook has little to lose since their product (users) don't seem to care what happens to their data as long as they can post their cat pictures. And they've built a Terms of Use that guarantees they own every aspect of the data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook#Terms_of_Use_controversy). Not to mention there's not been much talk of anyone caring about a company holding a monopoly in the social network sphere. It's a 'meh' issue when compared to search market share.

    So what's keeping Facebook from transforming more of their revenue stream from ad sales to data sales down the road? Especially with the ad controversies that were swirling around (https://youtu.be/oVfHeWTKjag)? Following the money...not much?

    P.S. - s/tailer/tailor