What do they have on you?

Welcome to the 150th edition of TFR, reporters! 🥂

There’s been a LOT of talk about data and barely-there data privacy on the weird, wide web these days. I’ve been focusing on other topics here at TFR, but once Instagram joined the fray, I was like, alright, I’ll jump on this bandwagon.

Google Takeout is a tool for archiving and looking at all the data Google has collected on you. And even if you don’t use Google much, it’s a lot.

My archive was so big, it took a few minutes just to unzip 😯 It includes everything from photos to Hangout sessions to what I searched for on August 9th, 2013. Yikes.

I found out about Takeout from this NYT article, which mainly focused on the equivalent tool at Facebook. Instagram, as I mentioned, is supposed to release one in the coming weeks.

So what is the use, you ask, besides having yet another thing to panic about? Well, Facebook lets you “remove” some of the data, though you should take that with a grain of salt, and Google at least lets you think more clearly about what they – and by extension, advertisers – can see when you use their products.

Those creepily accurate sidebar ads suddenly make more sense. Sweet dreams, reporters!