Stop What You're Doing, And Go See What Google Thinks It Knows About You

There has been a lot of debate about privacy vs. the data that for-profit companies such as Facebook and Google collect in exchange for social networking services. The idea is that companies offer a service such as file sharing, and they offer this at no charge. In exchange, they collect information about your preferences which they can sell to advertisers at a profit.

Google once famously attempted to distinguish themselves from the evil giant, Microsoft, by promising that they would never abuse your data. But the definition of abuse may be changing over time.

Are you curious to see what Google thinks it knows about you? Now you can find out! Follow the link below from your home computer, and have a look at the information Google has collected and associated with your URL.

Stop What You're Doing, And Go See What Google Thinks It Knows About You

An edited printout of my results are provided below as an illustration.

Your categories

Below you can review the interests and inferred demographics that Google has associated with your cookie. You can remove or edit these at any time.

• Arts & Entertainment - [Correct]
• Music & Audio - [Wrong]
• Autos & Vehicles - [Correct]
• Beauty & Fitness - [Wrong]
• Beauty & Fitness - [Wrong]
• Games - [Correct]
• Shopping - [Correct]
• World Localities - [Correct]

Your demographics

We infer your age and gender based on the websites you've visited. You can remove or edit these at any time.

• Age: [Correct]
• Gender: [Correct]

Seven of Ten are correct and the three that were wrong are wrong for reasons I can understand.

What do you think about this data-mining effort? Good, bad, or indifferent?