Video: Scraped and leaked: 48 million users' social profiles
Facebook and Google make money by aggregating services and advertising around a single user ID -- usually your official name. But this creates a messy user experience, as the algorithms try to guess your interests from a large tableau of your various activities.
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Each has one name, but we are at least 18 different people, maybe even more. Consider how different you are during the week: You have a senior role at work, compared with your family persona; you are a soccer coach on Wednesday and Saturday; at weekends, you organize a bicycle club; in the evenings, you do yoga classes and dance classes; on Friday afternoon, you volunteer at the local food bank; you visit your grandparents every Sunday with your siblings and children; you go dancing and socializing with the same group of (non-work) pals every Saturday; and you regularly attend your local alumni events. Then, there's your silent DJ hiking group on Sunday, and your online photo community, and other professional associations, and your children's school with its parent and teacher communities, etc.
Same name -- 18 very different people
The algorithms of Facebook and Google have mashed up all these different personas into one ID -- but we're only one person at a time. Despite all their data about us all, these massive platforms still don't seem to know us much at all.
For example: I don't need or want to know everything about a work colleague or the office details of a distant family member. And why do I need to impose notifications on my activities to others when it's