[Zelphyr]

You're 100% correct. Except neither Google nor Yahoo have yet to figure out how to get people to give them the amount of personal information that Facebook has and does.

I don't trust Google or Yahoo any more than I trust Facebook but at least the former two companies don't know about me what Facebook probably does. I say probably because I actually deleted my account several years ago and block their trackers. But I'm under no delusion that they don't know who I am or don't still retain a significant amount of my personal information even though I deleted my account.

[gress]

Google has far more personal information than Facebook.

[stdgy]

In general, I like to think of it as:

Facebook knows the facade that you want to present to the world. Google knows what you want (or what you want to know).

Now, each of these is actually only addressing the front-facing portion of the business. Each company obviously has much more information when you begin to consider their link tracking, advertising network tie-ins, communication mining and external domain 'likes'.

But it's good to remember that Google's advertising is so damned valuable because you're already looking for stuff when you go there.

[gress]

That might have been true in 1999.

Today Google knows:

- What you search for - What websites you visit - Who you communicate with - The contents of your email - Your physical location

...and the list goes on.