While internetsurfers are aware of the concept of targeted advertisement, not many know theextent to which brands collect the data of online visitors.?
A new report nowattempts to do that and as per its findings, Facebook unsurprisingly ranks asthe top data garner in the world.
As per the data sharedby a Clario report, Facebook procures 70.59% of all thedata a business can legally collect about you. Facebook-owned Instagram comesnext, collecting 58.82% of all available data.
As per the report, this data includes regular data like name,location, email address and date of birth, as well as other information like ¡°yourhobbies, height, weight and sexual orientation.¡± Being a social media network, Facebookasks for this information for recommending friends to you, marking events,suggesting groups and pages to follow and of course, for directingadvertisements to you.
Advertisements are the main source of revenue for Facebook,which clocked around $16.6 billion from sales revenue in 2018. As social media platforms continue to collectmore data than others, this revenue is only expected to skyrocket in the comingyears.
The practice, however, is not limited to social mediaplatforms. ¡°93% of companies will storeyour email address,¡± the report mentions. They might never use it or maintain aregular connection with the visitor through mails, depending on the service. ¡°Anemail address is the basic data a company will request from you,¡± the reportpoints out.
Much more extensive data is collected by dating apps includingTinder and Grindr, which rank on the list right after Facebook and Instagram. Otherprominent services like Uber, Spotify and Netflix also rank high.
In comparison, Pornhub ranks at the bottom of the list,collecting just over 5 percent of personal data of online visitors. WhatsAppcollects over 11 percent of data.