How to See What the Internet Knows About You (And How to Stop It)
My mom (Hi mom!) isnt exactly a tech expert. We have the stereotypical boomer parent/millennial child relationship. I help her update her OS and figure out her cable bill, she cautions me about sketchy hackers stealing my identity and warns me not to open strange email attachments.
Just because youre paranoid, she likes to joke in her motherly way, doesnt mean they arent out to get you. I laugh then brush it off.
But mom, Im here to say: You were right.
The relentlessly unyielding (but highly profitable) personalization of the products and services we use is getting deeper and creepier than ever. This type of data is incredibly valuable, were producing a ton of it every day, and its all being used to turn us into products. As one Facebook developer famously said: The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/smarter-living/how-to-see-what-the-internet-knows-about-you.html