Ask Slashdot: What Does Your Data Mean To Google? (google.com)

shanen writes: Due to the recent kerfuffles, I decided to try again to see what Google had on me. This time I succeeded and failed, in contrast to the previous pure failures. Yes, I did find Google's takeout website and downloaded all of "my data," but no, it means nothing to me. Here are a few sub-questions I couldn't answer:

1. Much more data than I ever created, so where did the rest come from?
2. How does the data relate to the characteristic vector that Google uses to characterize me?
3. What tools do Googlers use to make sense of the data?

Lots more questions, but those are the ones that are most bugging me right now. Question 2. is probably heaviest among them, since I've read that the vector has 700 dimensions... So do you have any answers? Or better questions? Or your own takeout experiences to share? Oh yeah, one more thing. Based on my own troubled experience with the download process, it is clear that Google doesn't really want us to download the so-called "our own" data. My Question 4. is now: "What is Google hiding about me from me?"

Comments

Re:Et tu , Btute?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Does Google sell it outright?

The German postal service, Deutsche Post, was just caught selling data to political parties, which was used in election campaign targeting.

Deutsche Post responded with the claim that they were not selling the data . . . merely "renting it out" . . .

Mega giga lame.

Data brokers

[Anonymous Coward]

Google doesn't sell it outright. They are aggregating from data brokers and other sources.

You can cut into the data broker model by subscribing to a service like DeleteMe, but it's expensive and not a silver bullet by any means. But doing that + using a privacy-friendly e-mail provider + using a secure messenger + securing your browser with ad/tracker blockers + seriously limiting what you put on social media + using DuckDuckGo or Startpage for search + using a VPN...

If you do ALL that you'll have pretty strong protection.

Re:I got a ZIP file

[swillden]

This list is missing your tracked browsing history. For Android users there is GPS tracking history and call and SMS history.

If location history is turned on, it should be there in the download. Mine is.

SMS messages are not uploaded to Google, unless you're using Hangouts for SMS (which you can't do anymore unless you're using Project Fi as your carrier). Many people wish SMS were backed up, so that it could be restored onto a new device. As it is, when you get a new phone your SMS history is lost unless you copy it across to the new device (which recent Android versions will automate for you).

FWIW, Android P is enabling Android backups to be encrypted in a way that ensures that Google cannot read them. That will in turn enable more data (like SMS, I'd expect) to be backed up and restored since it won't raise privacy concerns.