Tech Companies collect data for a multitude of reasons, including targeted advertising, recommendation algorithms, understand user behavior to improve experiences, or even making money from selling your data! Let's take a look at what data specific companies collect from users—but first, let's see what data you're comfortable giving companies.
Check the data you're okay with tech companies having on you, and compare it to what they actually collect.
Google's become so integrated in daily life through its search engine, productivity workspace, YouTube platform, and powerful interfaces with countless other tech services, it's hard to think about what they don't collect! Of course, simple data such as your name and phone number are collected, but scarier data such as documents & spreadsheets you generate, and photos/videos you upload are also collected, though metadata isn't. Google also collects extensive data related to your search history, media consumption, and activity on 3rd party apps to generate insights for advertisers.
Due to both Instagram and Facebook starting off as purely social apps (though they've now evolved to have marketplaces), they specialize in collecting data about user activity to help advertisers precisely market to their segmented audience. This includes photo/videos uploaded and their metadata, the content you interact with, duration and frequency of activity, and views/interaction with ads. Meta makes the majority of its revenue from advertising, the more data it can provide on its users, the higher premium it can charge!
Amazon's model isn't dependent on advertising, so they're able to collect much less activity data compared to the Google and Facebook, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to be aware of. Beyond simple personal info and payment information, they collect data on your browsing, purchase and review activity, as well as GPS data. Amazon also sources large portions of data from third-party collectors, including credit card bureaus! Due to their marketplace model, they also share data on you with third parties, which can be a risk.
Twitter falls in line with the data collection practices of Google and and Meta, but with a few distinct differences. They collect your content, interaction with ads, who you message and are connected with, time/frequency of activities, as well as browsing history and info from 3rd party apps. They even collect GPS data! Most concerning is the browsing history they collect, but rest assured (maybe?): they never it link it with identifying information.
Now that you've learned about some big companies collect data, scroll backup to your checklist and see if you're providing any data you're not comfortable with!
Source: Security.org