[avoidit]

Let us reserve our judgment on Google for now. But FB is far worse than what you say here. Suppose I group people into

1. Those who actively use Facebook and willingly tell it everything about their lives

2. Those who actively use Facebook and unwillingly tell it everything about their lives (who don't know what data it collects)

3. Those who once actively used Facebook

4. Those who have never created a Facebook (or WhatsApp or Instagram) account

The real issue is, FB likely has as much private data about group number 4 as group number 1 because of their shadow profiles (which they euphemistically refer to as "future Facebook users"). And their current or past employees seem to be a little too conveniently blind to this matter. See here for e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16676720

[dingaling]

Google also has a lot of category 4 data; although I don't have any Google accounts I am well aware that they track everything coming from my IP addresses, and from any of their cookies that I inadvertently allow through.

All Google's posturing about 'review and manage your data' is meaningless to me in that regard. Why can't I ask them to delete everything associated with my IPv6 block, for example?