Some users just want to melt in to the crowd I guess.
I have my own domain and i love it. In fact, it's going to become more and more important knowing how to self host things. Big tech is extreamly preditory.
Meta and Twitter are social media companies. They have access to peoples tweets. It's similar to having access to these messages you and me are typing, except many people use their own names there.
It's not too bad privacy wise, just social messages.
Google on the other hand has the private searches of billions of people. Everything you put into a search engine because you are worried, afraid, sick, or curious about something.
Google records all this private activity and saves it under your personal profile, and then uses cookies to track every web site you are visiting on the web (using not only Google search but Google analytics cookies that exists on almost every website).
They also combine this data with whatever you are doing on your android phone, or what places you go to using Google maps, or what video meetings you are having with Google meets, what emails you have in Google Mail, what video you watch on YouTube, what calendar events you are having with Google calendar... And so on.
Then they feed all this data into algorithms designed to figure out what you are likely to do next. They sell this data to advertisers so they can target you with ads. They also send this data to American agencies like nsa to be stored and analyzed.
There is a giant difference here between Google and the other companies you mentioned. Google is literally watching moments from people's entire lives, while the others only see your social media messages.
This is why Google is completely absurdly in it's own class of anti-privacy. No other company has this amount of data about people's every moment awake.
Now they use their dominant position to try and take over the entire web, so it's not possible to escape them anymore using a different browser, blocking cookies and tracking, or using another search engine.
If everyone is forced to use their browser, we have lost everything good about the web.
They should be treated like the cancer to a free web they really are.
Chatgpt is usually accurate enough in my experience and also what it says below is what i I know myself is included:
Personal data, as defined by various data protection laws, refers to any information that relates to an identified or identifiable natural person. This means that personal data includes any data that can be used, directly or indirectly, to identify an individual. It can be a name, identification number, location data, online identifier, or factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural, or social identity of that person.
Examples of personal data include:
Name: Full name, first name, last name, or initials.
Contact Information: Email address, phone number, physical address, or social media handles.
Identification Numbers: National ID number, passport number, social security number, or driver's license number.
Location Data: GPS coordinates, IP address, or data from tracking systems.
Online Identifiers: Usernames, account numbers, or device-specific identifiers.
Biometric Data: Fingerprints, facial recognition data, or voiceprints.
Health Information: Medical history, health conditions, or health insurance details.
Financial Information: Bank account numbers, credit card details, or income information.
Racial or Ethnic Information: Information about race, ethnicity, or cultural background.
Sexual Orientation: Information regarding a person's sexual orientation or preferences.
It's important to note that even if a single piece of data seems innocuous or does not appear personally identifiable by itself, when combined with other data points, it might lead to the identification of an individual. Therefore, data controllers and processors are obligated to treat all such data with care and follow data protection regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union or other relevant laws, to ensure the privacy and security of individuals' personal data.
I asked chatgpt and it seems to apply to instance owners:
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a data protection law that was implemented by the European Union (EU) to protect the personal data and privacy of individuals within the EU. It applies to both corporations and individuals who process personal data in the context of offering goods or services to individuals in the EU or monitoring the behavior of individuals within the EU, regardless of where the company is located.
So, the GDPR does not only apply to corporations but also to any individual or organization that handles personal data of individuals within the EU, irrespective of their size or location. This means that even small businesses, non-profit organizations, and individuals who process personal data falling within the scope of the GDPR must comply with its provisions.
It's not too hard. The most important things are web search and email. I still use Google Maps. But I don't want my private emails and searches at a company who is user hostile and preditory.
If an instance becomes too dominant, users actually love it.
Example: Lemmy.world :)