Where does the data advertisers have about us exist and can we get access to it? I’ve heard that each of us has an advertiser ID that tags each of us as soon as we join a new platform. It knows where we went to middle school, our teachers names and even our personality. I have it on good authority that even Chegg has access to your footprint across the internet. I would love to get access to all of this as I could see it being a more complete psychological profile than MBTIs or BigFive personality tests
In theory, if crafted well enough, you could use it to help visualize in a flowchart timeline:
• Your life story and common patterns between different chapters of life
• How you like to work, what your preferences are in people, content or relationships
• What others with similar life trajectories have done at your stage of life
Where does this data exist, could I ever hope to get access to it in a useable form (or buy it from advertisers)?
Right, it depends on the advertiser network. I gathered some assumptions from the Social Dillema, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaaC57tcci0 but the truth is a bit more nuanced
Do you think it possible to access or somehow purchase your data from advertising networks like facebook or google? If advertisers are able to get access, could you not buy it yourself
These types of companies usually have a place where you can request to receive all of the data they have on you.
For example, google
companies will typically have something in their TOS or privacy policies that has an email or a link.
I’m not sure about all this “purchasing of data” yak.