Homeless in Arizona

Source Also see: ^{1 2 3 4 5}

Some people think they can get away with slandering people on Facebook and keep it secret. (Damn makes me think of Safer Arizona, Sergeant David Stephen Wisniewski, Michelle Mushee Westinfield, mushee666@yahoo.com, Robert W Clark, Tom Dean, Zachary Ocker, Manuel Chavez III, Defango, Mikel Weisser - 928-234-5633 - 4490 Sundown Dr, So-Hi, AZ 86413 - mikelweisser@gmail.com, Kathy Inman, Dave Inman )

Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Source

I downloaded all my Facebook data. This is what I learned.

Talking Tech

Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY Published 6:30 a.m. MT March 30, 2018 | Updated 11:55 a.m. MT March 30, 2018

LOS ANGELES — Like many, I downloaded the data this week that Facebook compiled about me over the years, and frankly, it was spooky.

I love the social network for showing off my latest photos, staying in contact with old friends and catching up on the latest news.

But to get those features, Facebook kept:

— Location info of all my contacts. This happened when I joined and Facebook asked if I wanted to connect with other friends by importing my contacts from my computer, which happened to have their phone numbers and sometimes addresses. Facebook has lived with this info since I joined in 2007.

— Any restaurant or airport where I've "checked in."

— The IP address of everywhere I've ever logged into Facebook.

— My (estimated by Facebook) political and religious views, despite my posts that focus on three areas: photography, work (the latest articles, podcasts and videos) and, occasionally, family.

— All my searches on Facebook over the years, the names of my followers and facial recognition of me and my friends.

Whoa!

After the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which an app developer was able to sell personal data to a research firm that said it helped Donald Trump win the election, Facebook apologized. It says it has tightened its policies on what data can end up with app developers since that data leak happened. Additionally, it will be more transparent about the data it collects, the company vows.

Meanwhile, it will roll back some of the ad-targeting tools that have long been available to data brokers.

Want to know what Facebook has on you? Download the data. Just go to the Settings section of Facebook (the arrow next to the question mark, top right) and click on "download my data" at the bottom of the page called "General Account Settings." Then you'll make your request and await Facebook's compiling of your data, which is delivered via an email link. If you've been on Facebook for many years, expect the link to take a while.

Once the file arrives, double-click to open the "index.htm" file in an Internet browser, and look it over.

Despite the years of data Facebook has collected, downloading them won't require a separate hard drive for giant files. Most are text based, and thus, tiny files.

Facebook's list of Jefferson Graham's downloaded apps

As I did, you'll jump over the obvious, such as the names of your Facebook friends, which are listed already on the social network, along with your posts, photos, etc.

Where it gets weird is in the phone numbers — why does Facebook have them?

Separately Facebook has been collecting information on calls and text messages from Android devices, but the social network defended itself by saying it sought permission to do so. It was sold primarily as a feature for Facebook Messenger to help "you find and stay connected with the people you care about," Facebook said.

Meanwhile, you don't need to download the file to find out which advertisers have targeted you and have your personal information, including what your religious and political persuasions are. Facebook's listing of your personal information, which

Again, in the Settings section in Facebook, head to the Ads section by clicking on "Ads" in the left menu.

Here you can try and play havoc with Facebook's algorithm by deleting as many of the assumptions that Facebook has come up with. Political and religious were first to go for me, although the others seem pretty tame, such as male friends with birthdays within seven days.

After a few more clicks, I found out which advertisers had my info. The magazine Vanity Fair, which I love but don't subscribe to, has the goods on me, along with Dollar Rent a Car and Uber, which I do use. Facebook said these companies had "your contact info" but didn't spell out how extensive that was — just email or phone number and address as well? (We reached out to Facebook to ask, and are awaiting an answer.) Facebook wants to create ads for you based on websites

One section that definitely is worth clicking "no" to: the ad settings where Facebook asks if it can create ads for you based on the websites and apps you visit.

You could argue that targeted ads make for a better Internet experience. I'm followed around everywhere I surf with ads for cameras and guitars because Facebook knows I love them, but, hey, if I want to buy a camera, I know where to go. The download your information tab in Facebook

Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst with Kaleido Insights, suggests turning off as many of the features as possible on Facebook. "The less information you give, the more privacy you'll have," he says.

Let's be real — you can click every button, and Facebook will still find a way to keep tracking you. But it can track less.

Remember folks, those Facebook messages don't get deleted.

This should cause some problems for some of those folks in Safer Arizona who post slanderous hate messages and then delete them, thinking the messages are deleted.

Source

Matthew Diebel, USATODAY Published 7:36 a.m. MT Jan. 2, 2018

A man who spent more than three years in prison on a rape conviction has been freed after a family member found deleted Facebook messages that proved his innocence.

Danny Kay, 26, of Derby in England, had been jailed in 2013 after a woman accused him of rape following a sexual encounter the year before, according to local media. Key to his conviction were Facebook messages that appeared to show him apologizing for sex without the woman’s consent.

It turned out the woman had selectively deleted messages in an apparent effort to prove her version of the story. It was only when Kay’s sister-in-law Sarah Maddison found an archived version of the messages on his Facebook account that he was able to get the conviction overturned.

England’s Court of Appeal in London ruled that police relied on an “edited and misleading” account of the Facebook conversation that was given to them by the complainant in the weeks after she claimed she was raped by Kay, the Daily Mail reported.

Kay told the paper that he owed his liberty to a conversation with a fellow inmate who convinced him the Facebook messages he thought were lost were recoverable.

Kay then asked Maddison to log in to his account. “I couldn’t believe how easy it was to find the messages,” she told the Daily Mail. “I am no social media expert,” she said, but “it only took me a minute to find them, so how trained police couldn’t is beyond me.” Kay had strenuously denied the charges to police.

The saga began in 2012 when Kay and the accuser had sex in what he described as a casual fling. He said it was consensual, she said it was not. At his trial, his accuser said there had been little contact between them after sex, the Independent newspaper reported. However, the full string of Facebook messages proved there was considerable contact and that the sex was consented to by both parties.

In particular, one edited message considered by the jury read “sorry,” implying that forced sex had taken place. The complete messages, however, showed that it was a response to the woman asking him why he was ignoring her. Also omitted from the version presented to the jury was her response: “Dnt [sic] be.”

Another factor in his conviction were edited messages that implied Kay had misled the woman about his age during their conversations, thus branding him as a liar. During their first Facebook conversation, the Daily Mail reported, he asked the girl how old she was, to which she replies: “Nearly 17.” (The age of consent in England is 16.) He then asked if she was single and she replied “yep.” He then said: “Same here.” However, in the messages shown to the jury, it appeared that his “Same here” response is a reference to his age.

In addition, the paper said, in one of the messages sent after the sexual encounter Kay asked the accuser for her phone number because he’d lost it. Not only did she supply it, but she also sent four kiss emojis. She later deleted this and other messages.

In another section of the deleted messages, the accuser says: “im still here for ya!” And in another communication, after the pair had split up, she said: “I thought u woulda at least tried to get me back.”

When the recovered messages were shown to the appeals court, the judges in a ruling in late December said that the exchange undermined the woman’s account and supported Kay’s version.

Derbyshire Police told the Daily Mail it would review its investigation “to find out whether lessons can be learned.”

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Keep these things in mind if you decide to delete Facebook

Ken Colburn, Special to The Republic | azcentral Published 6:00 a.m. MT April 3, 2018

Question: I’m on the fence about whether to delete my Facebook profile. What are your thoughts?

Answer: If you’re an active Facebook user, you may be pondering this question in light of recent news of misuse of the platform.

Facebook users know that they aren’t the customers — they’re the product. Many are angry about the manipulation that the platform has allowed.

Deleting your profile won’t do a thing for the data already compiled on you – it will only limit future gathering of data and influence.

If you decide to continue using Facebook, changes to settings and your usage of the network area certainly in order.

Consider pros, cons of Facebook How you are using Facebook is the biggest factor in making your decision. If you’re simply using it to "lurk" on others posts instead of actively engaging with your network, you’re more likely to be exposed to "manipulative" posts.

If you use the network to connect with others with similar interests in specialized "groups," then you’re probably getting more value out of your time on the network.

I, for instance, turned to Facebook groups when I wanted to explore the world of RVs and gain insights from those who have been actively involved in the lifestyle for years.

The information that I continue to learn almost daily has been invaluable and saved me both time and money.

Change how you use Facebook

One of the best ways to avoid being manipulated by Facebook is to not use the service to get all of your news. I routinely have to suggest that people check their sources before posting what turns out to be common hoaxes.

We all have to take personal responsibility for a portion of the manipulation that is growing on all social networks because too many of us take too much at face value because it came from a trusted friend.

Before you repost anything, check the source and do some of your own research. One of the quickest ways to sniff out hoaxes or misleading information is to do a quick Google search using the headline.

Find and connect with your own trusted news sources (are you following azcentral on Facebook?) and use services like News360 that can aggregate thousands of news organizations' versions of each story, and can also be personalized to create your own digital newspaper.

How to find your Facebook data

Protect your Facebook information from third-part apps in just a few steps. Jefferson Graham reports on #Talking Tech.

A lesser-known feature is the ability to see your recent interaction with ads, which can be a real eye opener. You can access it by going to the "Explore" section of the Facebook sidebar and clicking ‘See More’.

iOS users can access it by tapping the three lines in the bottom right corner and then on "See More." Android users can tap the three lines in the upper right corner, then scroll to the Apps section and tap "See All."

You can manage all your ad preferences at www.facebook.com/ads/preferences. To download a copy of your Facebook data visit www.facebook.com/settings.

Facebook is making a lot of changes, so you may want to temporarily deactivate your account, in case you decide you want to go back.

If you decide to delete your profile, I recommend that you download a copy of your Facebook data first, at the address above.

Ken Colburn is founder and CEO of Data Doctors Computer Services, at datadoctors.com. Ask any tech question at Facebook.com/DataDoctors or on Twitter @TheDataDoc.

If you are going to slander people you should not do it on Facebook.

Facebook keeps just about everything you post and do forever.

So if you think you can make a slanderous post and delete it and not be discovered, you ain't going to get away with it if somebody sues you and subpoenas your Facebook data.

And I have said many times, if you are going to commit a victimless crime you shouldn't post it on Facebook or the internet. Don't post anything on Facebook you wouldn't mind a cop hearing.

Maybe somebody should tell Safer Arizona's Sergeant David Stephen Wisniewski this

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I Downloaded the Information That Facebook Has on Me. Yikes.

By BRIAN X. CHEN APRIL 11, 2018

BUSINESS By AINARA TIEFENTHÄLER, ROBIN STEIN and KEVIN ROOSE 3:30

When I downloaded a copy of my Facebook data last week, I didn’t expect to see much. My profile is sparse, I rarely post anything on the site, and I seldom click on ads. (I’m what some call a Facebook “lurker.”)

But when I opened my file, it was like opening Pandora’s box.

With a few clicks, I learned that about 500 advertisers — many that I had never heard of, like Bad Dad, a motorcycle parts store, and Space Jesus, an electronica band — had my contact information, which could include my email address, phone number and full name. Facebook also had my entire phone book, including the number to ring my apartment buzzer. The social network had even kept a permanent record of the roughly 100 people I had deleted from my friends list over the last 14 years, including my exes.

There was so much that Facebook knew about me — more than I wanted to know. But after looking at the totality of what the Silicon Valley company had obtained about yours truly, I decided to try to better understand how and why my data was collected and stored. I also sought to find out how much of my data could be removed.

How Facebook collects and treats personal information was central this week when Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, answered questions in Congress about data privacy and his responsibilities to users. During his testimony, Mr. Zuckerberg repeatedly said Facebook has a tool for downloading your data that “allows people to see and take out all the information they’ve put into Facebook.”

But that’s an overstatement. Most basic information, like my birthday, could not be deleted. More important, the pieces of data that I found objectionable, like the record of people I had unfriended, could not be removed from Facebook, either.

“They don’t delete anything, and that’s a general policy,” said Gabriel Weinberg, the founder of DuckDuckGo, which offers internet privacy tools. He added that data was kept around to eventually help brands serve targeted ads.

Beth Gautier, a Facebook spokeswoman, put it this way: “When you delete something, we remove it so it’s not visible or accessible on Facebook.” She added: “You can also delete your account whenever you want. It may take up to 90 days to delete all backups of data on our servers.”

Digging through your Facebook files is an exercise I highly recommend if you care about how your personal information is stored and used. Here’s what I learned.

Facebook Retains More Data Than We Think When you download a copy of your Facebook data, you will see a folder containing multiple subfolders and files. The most important one is the “index” file, which is essentially a raw data set of your Facebook account, where you can click through your profile, friends list, timeline and messages, among other features.

One surprising part of my index file was a section called Contact Info. This contained the 764 names and phone numbers of everyone in my iPhone’s address book. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that Facebook had stored my entire phone book because I had uploaded it when setting up Facebook’s messaging app, Messenger.

This was unsettling. I had hoped Messenger would use my contacts list to find others who were also using the app so that I could connect with them easily — and hold on to the relevant contact information only for the people who were on Messenger. Yet Facebook kept the entire list, including the phone numbers for my car mechanic, my apartment door buzzer and a pizzeria.

This felt unnecessary, though Facebook holds on to your phone book partly to keep it synchronized with your contacts list on Messenger and to help find people who newly sign up for the messaging service. I opted to turn off synchronizing and deleted all my phone book entries.

My Facebook data also revealed how little the social network forgets. For instance, in addition to recording the exact date I signed up for Facebook in 2004, there was a record of when I deactivated Facebook in October 2010, only to reactivate it four days later — something I barely remember doing.

Facebook also kept a history of each time I opened Facebook over the last two years, including which device and web browser I used. On some days, it even logged my locations, like when I was at a hospital two years ago or when I visited Tokyo last year.

Facebook keeps a log of this data as a security measure to flag suspicious logins from unknown devices or locations, similar to how banks send a fraud alert when your credit card number is used in a suspicious location. This practice seemed reasonable, so I didn’t try to purge this information.

But what bothered me was the data that I had explicitly deleted but that lingered in plain sight. On my friends list, Facebook had a record of “Removed Friends,” a dossier of the 112 people I had removed along with the date I clicked the “Unfriend” button. Why should Facebook remember the people I’ve cut off from my life?

Facebook’s explanation was dissatisfying. The company said it might use my list of deleted friends so that those people did not appear in my feed with the feature “On This Day,” which resurfaces memories from years past to help people reminisce. I’d rather have the option to delete the list of deleted friends for good.

Your Facebook account keeps a record not only of ads you have clicked on, but also of advertisers that have your contact information, which can also be viewed in your archive. The Ad Industry Has Eyes Everywhere What Facebook retained about me isn’t remotely as creepy as the sheer number of advertisers that have my information in their databases. I found this out when I clicked on the Ads section in my Facebook file, which loaded a history of the dozen ads I had clicked on while browsing the social network.

Lower down, there was a section titled “Advertisers with your contact info,” followed by a list of roughly 500 brands, the overwhelming majority of which I had never interacted with. Some brands sounded obscure and sketchy — one was called “Microphone Check,” which turned out to be a radio show. Other brands were more familiar, like Victoria’s Secret Pink, Good Eggs or AARP.

Facebook said unfamiliar advertisers might appear on the list because they might have obtained my contact information from elsewhere, compiled it into a list of people they wanted to target and uploaded that list into Facebook. Brands can upload their customer lists into a tool called Custom Audiences, which helps them find those same people’s Facebook profiles to serve them ads.

Brands can obtain your information in many different ways. Those include:

■ Buying information from a data provider like Acxiom, which has amassed one of the world’s largest commercial databases on consumers. Brands can buy different types of customer data sets from a provider, like contact information for people who belong to a certain demographic, and take that information to Facebook to serve targeted ads, said Michael Priem, chief executive of Modern Impact, an advertising firm in Minneapolis.

Last month, Facebook announced that it was limiting its practice of allowing advertisers to target ads using information from third-party data brokers like Acxiom.

■ Using tracking technologies like web cookies and invisible pixels that load in your web browser to collect information about your browsing activities. There are many different trackers on the web, and Facebook offers 10 different trackers to help brands harvest your information, according to Ghostery, which offers privacy tools that block ads and trackers. The advertisers can take some pieces of data that they have collected with trackers and upload them into the Custom Audiences tool to serve ads to you on Facebook.

■ Getting your information in simpler ways, too. Someone you shared information with could share it with another entity. Your credit card loyalty program, for example, could share your information with a hotel chain, and that hotel chain could serve you ads on Facebook.

The upshot? Even a Facebook lurker, like myself, who has barely clicked on any digital ads can have personal information exposed to an enormous number of advertisers. This was not entirely surprising, but seeing the list of unfamiliar brands with my contact information in my Facebook file was a dose of reality.

I tried to contact some of these advertisers, like Very Important Puppets, a toymaker, to ask them about what they did with my data. They did not respond.

What About Google?

Let’s be clear: Facebook is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what information tech companies have collected on me.

Knowing this, I also downloaded copies of my Google data with a tool called Google Takeout. The data sets were exponentially larger than my Facebook data. For my personal email account alone, Google’s archive of my data measured eight gigabytes, enough to hold about 2,000 hours of music. By comparison, my Facebook data was about 650 megabytes, the equivalent of about 160 hours of music.

Here was the biggest surprise in what Google collected on me: In a folder labeled Ads, Google kept a history of many news articles I had read, like a Newsweek story about Apple employees walking into glass walls and a New York Times story about the editor of our Modern Love column. I didn’t click on ads for either of these stories, but the search giant logged them because the sites had loaded ads served by Google.

In another folder, labeled Android, Google had a record of apps I had opened on an Android phone since 2015, along with the date and time. This felt like an extraordinary level of detail.

On a brighter note, I downloaded an archive of my LinkedIn data. The data set was less than half a megabyte and contained exactly what I had expected: spreadsheets of my LinkedIn contacts and information I had added to my profile.

Yet that offered little solace. Be warned: Once you see the vast amount of data that has been collected about you, you won’t be able to unsee it.

Brian X. Chen, our lead consumer technology reporter, writes Tech Fix, a column about solving tech problems like sluggish Wi-Fi, poor smartphone battery life and the complexity of taking your smartphone abroad. What frustrates you about your tech? Send your suggestions for future Tech Fix columns to brian.chen@nytimes.com.

A version of this article appears in print on April 12, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Remember Those Friends You Deleted Long Ago? Facebook Does. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Remember, if you wouldn't want a cop to see it, you probably shouldn't say it online.

If you are going to commit a victimless crime, don't tell everybody about it on the Internet. It's like you're telling the cops.

Facebook, Google and many other websites keep a records of everything you do. And the cops can get that with a subpoena. So can somebody that sues you.

And of course the police have more or less flushed the 4th Amendment down the toilet and illegally spy on everything we do on the Internet, In addition to illegally listening in on our phone calls.

Source

What Google knows about me (and probably you, too)

Will Flannigan, The Republic | azcentral.com Published 11:16 a.m. MT April 7, 2018 | Updated 1:40 p.m. MT April 7, 2018

If you're like me, convenience often trumps prudence.

You're probably logged into a Google product right now.

And so are billions of other people.

More than 80 percent of internet search traffic worldwide was fielded by Google in March, according to NetMarketShare, a company that compiles data from approximately 100 million internet browsing sessions per month.

But Google's reach extends far beyond internet searches.

The company operates a suite of products, including Gmail, Maps, Chrome, YouTube, the Google Play Store and the Android operating system.

Seven Google products have more than 1 billion users, and the company has a cache of data on many of them.

Last year, Google announced that Android surpassed 2 billion active monthly users.

The news of Cambridge Analytica's use of Facebook data to target Americans and help influence their political views put major tech companies, and the data they collect about their users, under a microscope.

It spurred many to wonder what Facebook — and, by extension, Google and other companies — know about us.

Dylan Curran, an Irish web developer, posted a Twitter thread that inspired me to take a dive into my own Google data.

"Want to freak yourself out?" the thread began, "I'm gonna show just how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it."

Curran continued his examination for 37 tweets, pulling in more than 165,000 retweets and 259,000 likes.

So I downloaded my Google data, and Curran was right: I freaked out.

Note: This is data I shared with Google while logged into my account. Why look at Google?

Google predates Facebook by more than six years.

I've (mostly) been conscientious about what I share on Facebook. Sure, I made some social media missteps in college (who didn't?), but my relationship with Facebook is entirely by choice.

Google, however, has been a major provider of utility in my life. I've used the company's products to email, navigate, write and research. Google search is my homepage, and I use Google's Internet browser, Chrome.

I opened my Google account my freshman year of college. I opened my Facebook account a couple of years later.

In other words, Google knows much more about me than Facebook ever will. It knows things about me that I don't necessarily want to share with my friends or family. It knows things about me that I'd prefer to keep private. How to download your Google data

New reports show that Google has ten times the personal information stored on you as Facebook. Tony Spitz has the details. Buzz60

Getting access to the data Google stores on you is simple.

Visit Google's Takeout service . Takeout was launched in 2011 to give users a quick and simple way to download the data that the company has stored.

It takes minutes to complete a form requesting your data from Google. The company will send you an email with a link to your data once it processes your request.

It took several hours for my data to come in. My Google thumbprint in four ZIP files Google sent me an email with four files several hours

Google sent me an email with four files several hours after I submitted my request. (Photo: Google)

The company sent me four ZIP archives of data. In total, my data cache was more than 9 gigabytes.

"Your Google data archive is ready," the email subject line said.

These four archives held within them everything Google knew about me. The archives unpacked into more than 30 folders, each containing application-specific data. What I found

The files seemed endless. Each named after a service, each containing troves of information from my 10-plus years using Google products.

Frankly, I felt uncomfortable opening these files at work. I wasn't sure what was going to be included.

Google Maps is my preferred application for directions, and it has been since 2007, apparently.

The first time I used Google Maps to navigate was on June 12, 2007. I was seeking directions from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, to Manchester, Tennessee.

I made the search from my Android phone as I tried to find my way to a music festival more than 700 miles away from my starting point.

Nearly every Google Map search I've made since was documented in a file that has more than 3,200 entries.

LOCATION SERVICES

In addition to my map searches, Google also tracked my whereabouts via my Location History.

I activated this service on my Android phone on June 27, 2013, and deactivated it on July 17, 2017. During that time, Google pinged my latitude and longitude more than 20,000 times.

Google says its Location History service helps provide better recommendations based on where you've been. For example, it may provide an alternate route for your daily commute if traffic is piling up.

You can turn the service off at any time.

To see what Google knows about where you've been, use the company's Timeline tool. Who I've emailed

So. Many. Emails. I'm an email hoarder, there's no doubt about it. My Gmail account constantly warns me that I'm quickly running out of space.

The file containing information about my email was the bulk of my data, weighing in at more than 5 gigabytes. Currently, my account has more than 67,000 emails in it, my data revealed.

I'm embarrassed by that fact.

My data contained drafts, junk, spam and sent email.

Google announced in 2017 it would stop scanning users' email for information to provide a more personalized ad experience. ... and what I've read and watched online

I've been an insatiable news reader since college, and every news story I've read while logged into my account was recorded.

I have read more than 3,200 news stories that I found on the Google News platform since 2007, my data says.

My tastes have changed over time, of course. Early on, music and entertainment news dominated my clicks. Recently my tastes have been more refined: public safety, technology and political stories now make up the bulk of my news consumption.

It's easy to see how the company can use my data to recommend other news stories to me.

Google News launched in 2002.

YOUTUBE

YouTube hasn't always been a Google product. Google purchased the online video platform in 2006. My experience with YouTube began four years later. Since then, I have watched 21,000 videos on YouTube while logged into my account. The first video I viewed? A performance at a music festival.

Google Drive, Google Docs and Google Sheets are important tools for me.

Google launched its Drive service in 2012. Since then, two trillion files have been uploaded to its servers, according to Business Insider.

According to my data, I've uploaded or have shared more than 700 files on Google Drive. This includes files I created in Google Docs. ... my complete search history

This was the motherlode. Google has a detailed history of every search I've made while logged into my Google account.

I have made more than 17,000 search requests since 2007, my Google data revealed.

My earliest-recorded search was "the davinci code symbols," followed up by "robert langdon." Those searches were made in 2006. I was a big fan of author Dan Brown.

Google processes 3.5 billion internet searches per day, Internet Live Stats reports. ... other things

With Google Takeout, users can download information from 37 different areas. Though I'm an active Google user, many of the company's products I do not use, such as Google Fit, a fitness tracking app.

Other information may include payments you've sent (Google Pay Send), photos you've taken (Google Photos) and books you've read (Google Play Books). How does Google use this information?

Google uses your information in a plethora of ways. Most of the data the it collects falls into three buckets: things you do, things you create and things that make you "you," according to the company's privacy website.

Google promises that it does not sell your data.

The data is used to improve user experience, such as providing quicker search results or recommending a restaurant to you based on your previous queries.

And, of course, advertising. Google lets users tweak ad settings to deliver a more personalized ad experience. Visit adsettings.google.com to modify.

How to delete your Google data

Google lets users delete their data. Just like requesting the data, deleting data is straightforward and simple. Visit Google's my activity page From there you can choose to delete application-specific data, or choose to wipe everything.

Deleting your data, Google says, may impact your experience with Google products. For example: deleting YouTube data could affect the types of videos the service recommends to you, according to a Google spokesperson. What else? Just Google it

If you have any other questions about how Google uses your data or what data it collects, you can always visit Google.com and conduct a search.

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