“They trust me — dumb fucks” – Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook

Online privacy is becoming a huge issue these days and the emergence of social networks has only put a spotlight on just how much companies know about our online activities . What’s just as disturbing is the cavalier attitude taken by those very companies collecting your personal data. It would seem that privacy is truly becoming a thing of the past and that we’re slowly being put at the mercy of organizations whose goals are not to protect privacy as much as they are to monetize it.

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” – Eric Schmidt, CEO Google

So how does one even begin to understand what data is being collected and what’s being done with it? I suppose you could read through the privacy policies of the solutions you use online, but lets face it, no one has ever done that ever in the history of man. In fact, Carnegie Mellon recently published a study that found if you read every privacy policy on every website you encounter throughout the year, it would take you 76 work days to complete the task. Who’s got time for that shit when your trying to post pictures of your cat on Facebook? I’ll tell ya who…I do.

“all these concerns about privacy tend to be old people issues” – Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn Founder

So never fear! As a service to you, my loyal readers, I have taken it upon myself to read through the privacy policies of the most popular social networks and summarized them below in an easy to understand chart. Your welcome!