Filter Bubble (work with Facndo Prendoné)

1)     Searches:

Foo Fighters: We both got the same exact results.

Toyota: I got as the first result Toyota from Argentina and Facundo got Toyota from Spain, meaning Google knows I’m from Argentina and knows what I’m looking for.

Movies: first result was the Billboard from movies in Buenos Aires and his was movies from the page movies.com. Imdb.com appeared as second on my search and third on his search.

Wallpaper (images): both of us got the same result.

Google was able to know I live in Buenos Aires Argentina, and it looked for the movies there are in cinemas in Argentina, it also knows that if I type Toyota it is probably because I want to go to their official website, and so instead of taking me to Toyotas website in Japan or Spain my first option was for Argentina.

2)      Last time Google’s privacy policy was changed was on July 27 of 2012, Google said that “the new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience." Meaning that they will gather all the sites you have been entering with your Google account and with that information they will make assumptions of your preferences and your near surroundings, creating easier searches for you. Google says that this is a great advantage for them and you: "We can make search better—figuring out what you really mean when you type in Apple, Jaguar or Pink. We can provide more relevant ads too. For example, it’s January, but maybe you’re not a gym person, so fitness ads aren’t that useful to you. We can provide reminders that you’re going to be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and an understanding of what the traffic is like that day. Or ensure that our spelling suggestions, even for your friends’ names, are accurate because you’ve typed them before." Many people like or criticize this idea, some people might not like it because it removes all of your privacy, and all your life is managed by Google, meaning that it knows what you like, do, where you live etc. One no longer can have a private life, anything that you post on the internet can immediately be known to anyone in the world, and Google takes all of your searches on their search engine and they try to take all of your information for mostly their benefit, so that they can place ads that are more relevant to you. Google now monitors all your online activity and uses that data for their benefit. Google gives you the option to remove the cookie that stores all your online searches and movement, but many people aren’t even aware that Google does this, meaning that they aren’t informed of Google using your information for their gain.

3)      Google does not know who I think I am since I use a program called “adblock” which removes the annoying ads from the internet. The problem is that Google uses their ads to figure who I am and since I don’t have ads they have no information about me. its says:
"no interest or demographic categories are associated with your ads preference so far"

4)      Target was able to know that a teenage girl was pregnant before her parents knew by following what their customers have bought. It was very easy to do. “Target assigns every customer a Guest ID number, tied to their credit card, name, or email address that becomes a bucket that stores a history of everything they’ve bought and any demographic information Target has collected from them or bought from other sources. Using that, Pole looked at historical buying data for all the ladies who had signed up for Target baby registries in the past.”

This penetration of your private information does concern a lot of people, even me, because it means that the world knows everything about you, and that you can no longer have private things which you probably don’t want the entire world to know, such as the example of this teenage girl being pregnant. In the future, it is very probable that you will know less about yourself than companies such like Google or Target do, they track all of their customer’s records and use it for their advantage.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/