All this business, as you might have already guessed, isn’t always great for your online privacy. There’s a good chance that the free app or software you love is funded by the proceeds of your data. This week’s Facebook news as well as a number of recent reports about data collection also help us better understand the so-called alternative data industry. This business model has been around for decades, and it shows how free software (not to be confused with the free software movement) and services are never really free. The social network then uses everything it knows about you (read: more than you’d like) to sell hyper-targeted ads. Facebook is a free service that allows you to do fun stuff like set up a profile and send messages to friends, and it uses a variety of tools to track your every move both online and off. This isn’t a surprising revelation it’s not a revelation at all. It also serves as a reminder of the frightening amount of information Facebook knows about you. The tool lets you monitor and ( sort of) delete some of the information it collects about this activity. This offers users a glimpse into the many ways details of real-world transactions get shared with Facebook, regardless of what you’re doing on the Facebook platform.

Facebook made a gesture toward transparency this week with the launch of its Off-Facebook Activity tool.

Free email software from google