What Facebook and Google Know About You (and Why You Should Be Worried)
[MP4, 21 minutes]
Facebook has been in the limelight recently, in large part because of concerns about its privacy practices, exacerbated by revelations about the leak of data to Cambridge Analytica. But, as I explain in this podcast, the threats to your privacy from Facebook—and from Google and other platforms—arise more from the larger context in which your data is extracted, analyzed, amalgamated and sold. If you think that the exposing of your data is harmless, this podcast might make you reconsider.

Followup links:

New York Times Privacy Project: many good articles
Corporate Surveillance in Everyday Life: Report from Cracked Labs
How Facebook tracks even non-users
How Google tracks your purchases
Martec digital marketing landscape
FTC report calling for greater transparency from data brokers
Comprehensive and insightful article about digital ads, with link to full report
Recent article about data brokers and what they do with your data
Research paper about predicting depression from social media posts
Check to see if your personal accounts have been breached
Review and clear Google's records of your recent browsing history
Change Facebook ad settings
List of company pages to opt-out of data sharing
List of data broker sites and how to opt out

These podcasts are written and read by Daniel Jackson. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of MIT or Accenture. All similarities to real people (or software), living or dead, are coincidental. No animals or software developers were harmed in this production.

Introductory music used with kind permission of Chris Breemer via the Piano Society.

Copyright 2019, Daniel Jackson