Upset about how much of your data Facebook has? Wait until you see what Google has got on you.
Dylan Curran, an information technology consultant, took a look at just what Google knew about him. Even with his experience as a web developer, he was shocked.
"I was really like: 'Oh, my God. This is preposterous,'" Curran said.
When he requested his data from Google, he found that it was constantly tracking his location in the background, including calculating how long it took to travel between different points, along with his hobbies, interests, possible weight and income, data on his apps and records of files he had deleted. And that's just for starters.
He said he didn't think Google was doing anything malicious. He just felt newly uncomfortable with being so closely tracked.
"It's wrong to trust any entity that big with so much information," he said. "They're just trying to make money," and at some point, "someone is going to make a mistake."
His posts hit a nerve, with the thread racking up almost 150,000 retweets.
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What Curran found is the reality that Google's millions of users face every day, said Scott J. Shackelford, an associate business professor at Indiana University focusing on cybersecurity law and policy.
"All Google users are being tracked by default in terms of physically where [they're] going and located," Shackelford said. "That is shocking to a lot of people."
