Facebook and Google amass 'voluntary' personal data

[Michael Browne]

Facebook and Google amass 'voluntary' personal data

 

Max Schrems is no luddite. The law student was savvy enough to know that, if he requested it, Facebook would have to release all of the data it has collected on him since he joined. Even he, though, was taken aback by the amount of information Mark Zuckerberg's social network had on him.

 

When his report came back – all 1,200 pages of data – he saw details of friend requests he had ignored; people he had "defriended" and even items he had deleted from his account.

 

Yet everything in his file was information he had voluntarily given. His experience mirrors not only those of Facebook's estimated 900 million users, but those of everyone who has ever googled something, entered personal information into a website or – to some extent – even loaded a web page.

 

Today's headlines on the Government's so-called "snooper's charter" are about new powers for the police. But companies have been using internet users' data for good and bad for years. Google and Facebook are probably the most notable examples of sites that feed off the data their users give them. Both have targeted advertising. For those adverts to be worth the pixels they are printed on, they need users' information.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/hei-fi/news/facebook-and-google-amass-voluntary-personal-data-7854248.html?origin=internalSearch

[dx100uk]

people who have or have ever used virgin media or ntlworld.com

 

need to be very very careful too

 

i checked google out and it had all my pers details from 3 closed ntlword acounts listed

 

and linked to me on google!!

 

dont forget google now do virgin/ntl mail

 

dx

[maroondevo52]

There's now nowhere to 'hide'

[san_d]

There's now nowhere to 'hide'

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