How Google, Apple, Facebook and Others Use Your Personal Data (Infographic) A look at what some of the largest tech companies are doing with what they know about you.

By Catherine Clifford • Jun 28, 2013

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"Every breath you take, every move you make, I'll be watching you." The famous 1980's song by The Police might as well be the mantra for major tech companies today.

When you log onto the internet, click on a website or search a word, tech behemoths including Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo are watching. They track your preferences, collect information about your online habits and develop a profile of you.

The infographic below, created by San Jose, Calif.-based retail-strategy firm Baynote, shows the type of data gathered by each of these five tech giants, the methods they use to collect your personal data and how that data is used. It also reveals the number of words in each company's privacy policy, suggesting the complexity of each agreement.

Click to Enlarge +

How Google, Apple, Facebook and Others Use Your Personal Data (Infographic)

Image credit: Baynote

Catherine Clifford

Senior Entrepreneurship Writer at CNBC

Catherine Clifford is senior entrepreneurship writer at CNBC. She was formerly a senior writer at Entrepreneur.com, the small business reporter at CNNMoney and an assistant in the New York bureau for CNN. Clifford attended Columbia University where she earned a bachelor's degree. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can follow her on Twitter at @CatClifford.

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