Depending on the platform/client/browser/search engine implementation, they see what videos are shown to you before you click on them (thumbnail gets fetched, autoplay, pre-loading, etc.)
If someone sent you the link, they most likely know who’s sent you the link (through a reference ID)
The person who’s sent you this is probably logged in, so they know them by name, DoB, interests, etc. From here on out they can guess your own membership of certain statistical cohortsa bit better then through yourown clickinglinks alone.
And a host of other things - where you’re located (IP address), what type of connection you’re on (IP address + bandwidth), what type of device, what browser/client, etc.
This is just of the top of my head.
Don’t mean to scare anyone with this, but it is inherently spooky at the very least.
Its not only true of youtube either. I think they call it browser fingerprint? There are websites that can break down what it’s looking for and Ive tried, in an always futile attempt, to mask mine as much as possible but could spend sometime looking into it again.
Someday I’ll just go straight torr everything I am just admittedly too lazy.
That’s still a lot.
They know what videos you click (obviously)
They know when you click them
They know how much you watch each of the videos
They know how many times you click on the videos
Depending on the platform/client/browser/search engine implementation, they see what videos are shown to you before you click on them (thumbnail gets fetched, autoplay, pre-loading, etc.)
If someone sent you the link, they most likely know who’s sent you the link (through a reference ID)
The person who’s sent you this is probably logged in, so they know them by name, DoB, interests, etc. From here on out they can guess your own membership of certain statistical cohortsa bit better then through yourown clickinglinks alone.
And a host of other things - where you’re located (IP address), what type of connection you’re on (IP address + bandwidth), what type of device, what browser/client, etc.
This is just of the top of my head.
Don’t mean to scare anyone with this, but it is inherently spooky at the very least.
Its not only true of youtube either. I think they call it browser fingerprint? There are websites that can break down what it’s looking for and Ive tried, in an always futile attempt, to mask mine as much as possible but could spend sometime looking into it again.
Someday I’ll just go straight torr everything I am just admittedly too lazy.
They also know who is near you and what they are up to, so perhaps you, too…!