Privacy Rights and Terms of Use

Post by Dan Barker regarding data that is mined and sent to Google Analytics. 

http://barker.co.uk/buzzfeediswatching

From the article: 

• ‘ol:1218987′ is the quiz ID. In other words, if they wish, they could say “show me all the data for quiz 1218987″ knowing that’s the ‘Check Your Privelege’ quiz.

• ’1219024′ is the actual answer I checked. Each quiz answer on BuzzFeed has a unique ID like this. Ie. if you click “I have never had an eating disorder” they record that click.

In other words, if I had access to the BuzzFeed Google Analytics data, I could query data for people who got to the end of the quiz & indicated – by not checking that particular answer – that they have had an eating disorder. Or that they have tried to change their gender. Or I could run a query along the following lines if I wished:

• Show me all the data for anyone who answered the “Check Your Privelege” quiz but did not check “I have never taken medication for my mental health”.