Technology
How Google Tracks You – And What You Can Do About It
How Google Tracks You – And What You Can Do About It
Ever get the feeling you’re being watched?
It’s because you are – and for a rough proxy of this, use the browser extension Ghostery to see how many tracking scripts are watching you on a typical media site. (It doesn’t work for everything, but a large media site like Vice.com has 50+ trackers, with 40 of them focused on advertising).
Capturing this user data helps sites sell their inventory to advertisers, but a select few companies operate in this capacity at a whole different level. Google and Facebook are the best of examples of this, as nearly $0.60 of every dollar spent on digital advertising goes to them. They both have the sophistication and ubiquity to capture incredible amounts of information about you.
Google is Everywhere
Today’s infographic, which comes to us from Mylio, focuses in on Google in particular.
The search giant is massive in size, and there is a good chance you tap into Googleverse in some way:
- Global market penetration for Android is 61-81%.
- Google has a 78.8% market share for online search.
- The company generates $67.4 billion in annual ad revenue.
- Google processes two trillion searches annually.
- 30-50 million websites use Google Analytics to for tracking.
- There are 700,000 apps available in the Google Play store.
- 82% of videos watched online come from YouTube.
- In total, Google has at least 79 products and services.
According to Google’s documentation, it uses these services to pull out information on the “things you do”, “things you create”, and the things that make you unique.
See What Google Collects
All in all, Google tracks your activity history, location history, audio history, and device history. It also builds a profile for you for serving ads – age, gender, location, income, and other demographic data.
You can view and actually download this history by using a tool called Google Takeout.
Many people understand that their data helps support advertising revenues on websites they enjoy. Others are rightly concerned about their privacy, and how their information is used. Regardless of which category you fit in, becoming informed about how privacy on the internet works will help you craft an experience that best fits your preferences.
Technology
Ranked: The World’s Top 10 Electronics Exporters (2000-2021)
Here are the largest electronics exporters by country, highlighting how electronics trade has increasingly shifted to Asia over 20 years.
Top 10 Electronics Exporters in the World (2000-2021)
From personal computers to memory chips, the electronics trade plays a vital role in the world economy. In 2021, global electronics exports reached $4.1 trillion according to McKinsey Global Institute.
This graphic shows the 10 largest electronics exporters in the world, based on data from McKinsey, and how they’ve changed since 2000.
Ranked: The Top 10 Exporters of Electronics
Which countries are the leading exporters of electronics, and how has this shifted over the last two decades?
| Rank | Country | Share of Total 2021 | Share of Total 2000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇨🇳 China | 34% | 9% |
| 2 | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | 11% | 6% |
| 3 | 🇰🇷 South Korea | 7% | 5% |
| 4 | 🇻🇳 Vietnam | 5% | N/A |
| 5 | 🇲🇾 Malaysia | 5% | 5% |
| 6 | 🇯🇵 Japan | 4% | 13% |
| 7 | 🇺🇸 United States | 4% | 16% |
| 8 | 🇩🇪 Germany | 4% | 5% |
| 9 | 🇲🇽 Mexico | 3% | 3% |
| 10 | 🇹🇭 Thailand | 3% | N/A |
| Other | 20% | 30% |
We can see in the above table how global electronics trade has become more concentrated in Asia, specifically China and Taiwan. As an electronics powerhouse, 34% of the world’s electronic goods in 2021 came from China, representing $1.4 trillion in value.
Home to leading firms like TSMC, Taiwan also plays a major role due to its prowess in semiconductor manufacturing—highlighting the island’s global importance.
But not all of Asia has been thriving. In 2000, Japan was a global electronics powerhouse responsible for 13% of the industry’s exports, but has seen its share shrink to 4% in 2021. The U.S. has also sheen its electronics lead shrink, with exports down from 16% of the global total in 2000 to just 4% in 2021.
Several factors have driven this shift. Instead of manufacturing electronics domestically, the U.S. has outsourced technology to countries where manufacturing, production, and labor costs are lower. However, recently, the U.S. is focusing on reshoring semiconductor production specifically given its role in national security, as seen through the $52.7 billion CHIPS Act.
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