Google Knows More About Your Personal Life Than Facebook
Facebook knows too much about all of us, but it’s not the only company that stores everyone’s personal data. Google knows as much about us as Facebook (if not more), and that should worry you, even if this data was not used so recklessly – at least, what we do not know about.
In terms of basic personal information, both companies are practically equal. Assuming you’re feeding them a fair amount of information, Facebook and Google know your age, gender, where you live, your social circle, what you do for a living, and your common interests.
If you don’t like that any platform knows this information about you, there is not much you can do about it. Even deleting your account won’t work. Facebook has recognized the creation of “shadow profiles” for non-users, and according to The Wall Street Journal , Google is probably doing the same.
Google data’s huge advantage: Android and Maps
If you are using an Android phone, your entire call and text message history is available to Google. It is unclear if Google stores all of this data personally, although it does offer access to the information in some cases . As for Facebook, the company has used its Messenger app to retrieve call and text message history from Android users for years.
One area in which Google easily beats Facebook is in location tracking. Thanks to the popularity of Google Maps, the company has a detailed report of almost every place you’ve even been and can easily target ads to your path. (You can check your Google Maps history here, or click Manage Location History in the lower right corner to turn it off.)
Google’s dominance of search and video (YouTube) also gives it more data to play with. (You can see your entire YouTube search history right here .) Both companies also have quite a lot of information on any events you’ve attended in the past, thanks to Google Calendar and Facebook Events.
Take a look at the big tech data dumps
After all, there is an easy way to determine which tech giant knows more about you. Facebook and Google offer the ability to download a file with (almost) everything they know about you , but Google is much more than that. When Al Jazeera compared the two, Google had a file size of 5.5 GB (or “roughly three million Word documents”), while Facebook only had 600 MB (“roughly 400,000 Word documents”).
Obviously, Google continues to lead the way on Facebook, especially when it comes to your location and search history. We’re just hoping the search giant doesn’t have its own Cambridge Analytica scandal waiting in the wings.