Google and Facebook collect a lot of data about your online and offline life: here's how to block tracking by apps and social networks
From where you are to your home address or where you work, big tech companies know so many aspects of your private life. Very often we don't realize it, but every time we use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or one of Google's many services, we're giving these companies a part of our lives. Companies like Facebook and Google make billions of dollars primarily from advertisements: they collect data on users and display targeted ads. Have you been searching for a pair of shoes? The next time you log into Facebook you'll be shown an ad about the shoes you want to buy. And the same happens if you try to browse any website.
If you're wondering if Facebook and Google have the rights to collect so much information about our private lives, the answer is yes. When we sign up with Facebook or Google we accept the two companies' privacy and data policies without even reading them. If we had paid more attention we would have discovered that the two companies are very clear in their requests: they collect our personal data for their own advertising purposes.
Carefully reading the privacy policies of the giants of technology is not easy, but now comes to our rescue an online tool created by vpnMentor that has analyzed the clauses placed in the treatment of personal data by companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon and Tinder and that helps you understand how much they know about our lives. Here's how to find out how much Facebook and Google know about you.
Everything Facebook and Google know about you
The tool developed by vpnMentor is called "Who's Watching You?" (and is divided into five macro sections: geolocation, access to your messages, device usage information, who is ignoring the tracking blocker, activity on third-party sites.
Clicking on any of the five categories, the tool shows you all the data that apps collect about you. For example, when it comes to geolocation, as many as 18 of the 21 services analyzed by vpnMentor track your location while you're using the app. Facebook tracks not only your location, but also that of stores and people near you, so it can provide personalized suggestions. And it also knows your home address and the places you usually visit. Google has the same information.
The two tech giants use the messages you send in their apps (Instagram, Messenger, Hangouts, WhatsApp) to find out more about you.
Turning to the "Device Usage" chapter, the Facebook and Instagram apps collect a lot of information from your smartphone: battery level, the presence of Wi-Fi nearby, phone signal strength, apps and the name of files in memory. Google, on the other hand, stores all voice searches made through Google Assistant.
How to block Facebook and Google data collection
To protect your privacy, you can set an option on your browser that blocks tracking by the tech companies' cookies. But research by vpnMentor found that this tool doesn't always work for the best and many sites continue to track your activity. The only way to block tracking by Facebook and Google is to go into your personal account and change your privacy settings, making them very stringent.