An interesting deep-dive into how Google profiles and values different users.
It highlights that even though the service is “free”, the sheer value each user holds to Google from their data and ad-revenue. And with that, the impact you can have by leaving them.
If you haven’t already switched, you can check out the guide below to get started:
How did they get the 54,000 profiles?
'Proton analyzed over 54,000 demographic profiles using 2025 ad auction data to estimate what advertisers pay to reach different types of Americans. The range is much wider than you might expect." At least read the first Paragraph before asking.
I read the whole article but it doesn’t explain what “ad auction data” means.
There’s basically a marketplace where people who want to sell things bid on advertisement locations. So you may say, “I want to spam 10000 people who have school age children”, and you have to compete with other businesses who want to spam the same people.
While the details are of course proprietary, presumably some data has to be made available to the companies buying ads. So I guess that is what Proton looked at.