We’re all aware that privacy is becoming more a thing of the past with companies like Google and Facebook mining user data for the sake of advertising.
But just how much data do these companies keep on you? According to a recent report in The Sun, 98 personal pieces of data that even your closest friends likely don’t know about you:
The result has been a digital goldmine. In just three months this year, Facebook made £4.8billion from ad sales, because it could point advertisers to exactly the people they were after.
But how did Facebook get that data in the first place?
For much of it, the answer is simple: because you told it.
Your profile gives the site your name, age, relationship status and so on. But it also knows what you “like”.
Every time you hit the thumbs-up button, whether it’s on a pop star, a football team or a TV show, Facebook is adding that detail to its file on you.
And since Facebook’s billions of users spend an average of 50 minutes a day on its site — and Instagram, which it also owns — that’s an awful lot of clicks.
It can then fill in any blanks by looking at other people who “like” the same things as you and assuming you’ll probably have other “likes” in common as well.
Here’s just a sampling of the information they’re gathering:
1. Your location
2. Age
3. Generation
4. Gender
5. Language
6. Education level
7. Field of study
8. School
9. Ethnic background
10. Income and net worth
11. Home ownership and type of home
12. Value of home
13. Size of your property
14. Square footage of home
15. The year your home was built
16. Who lives in your house
17. Whether you have an anniversary approaching in the next month
18. If you’re living away from family or hometown
19. Whether you’re friends with someone who has an anniversary, is newly married or engaged, recently moved, or has an upcoming birthday
See the whole list, here.
As it’s been said before, if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. What do you think? Have you ever advertised on Facebook or do you plan on doing so?
(H/T: Glenn Beck)
