YouTube vs Facebook

Google collects a wide range of information about your activity, devices, identifiers, and location. In practice, using YouTube can feed a broad profile used across Google services.

Your activity across Google services, devices, and some partner sites/apps may be linked for personalization and advertising, depending on settings. This can significantly expand tracking beyond YouTube itself.

Google provides tools to review, export, delete specific data, delete product-specific data, or delete your whole account. This gives users unusually practical control over leaving the service or cleaning up stored information.

EEA and Swiss users generally keep the right to rely on local law and sue in their local courts, rather than being forced into arbitration. This is a major consumer-rights protection.

You keep ownership of your videos, but grant YouTube a worldwide, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free license to use, modify, distribute, and display them. Other users also get a broad service-enabled license to your content.

YouTube reserves the right to place ads on your content or charge users for access, and the Terms themselves do not guarantee you payment. Creators may therefore see their content monetized without compensation unless another agreement applies.

YouTube can suspend or terminate access for breaches, legal requirements, or conduct it believes creates liability or harm. Although it promises case-by-case review and often notice, the platform keeps substantial discretion.

Users can manage saved activity, pause histories, and set some data to auto-delete. That offers meaningful privacy controls, even though tracking is extensive by default or by feature use.

For many content removals, strikes, suspensions, and terminations, YouTube says it will provide reasons and offers internal appeal routes, with court access also referenced. That improves transparency compared with many platforms.

YouTube can change the service and the agreement for business, legal, security, or abuse reasons. It usually gives advance notice, but urgent changes may happen without that review window.

Some data is kept until you delete it or your account, and other data may be retained longer for legal or business reasons. Deletion may also take time to complete across active and backup systems.

Google says it will not reduce your privacy rights under the policy without your explicit consent. That is a meaningful commitment against silent erosion of stated privacy protections.

Meta collects information you provide, your activity, devices, contacts, and data from partners and third parties. In practice, this means Facebook can build a very detailed profile even from activity outside the app.

The policy says Meta receives information through cookies, pixels, and similar technologies from other websites and apps. This can connect your off-Facebook browsing and app activity back to your account or ad profile.

Some information is public by default, and public content can be viewed, reshared, downloaded, and even appear off Meta. Users should assume public posts may travel far beyond Facebook.

By posting content, you grant Meta a worldwide, sublicensable license to use, modify, distribute, and create derivatives. That gives Meta wide operational freedom to reuse what you upload while it remains on its systems.

Account or content deletion can take up to 90 days, plus another 90 days to remove copies from backups and disaster recovery systems. Some content can also be retained longer for legal, safety, or technical reasons.

Meta states it does not sell your personal data to advertisers and does not share directly identifying information without permission. That is better than a true data-selling model, though it still uses your data for ad targeting.

You can delete individual content, delete your account, and trash items begin a deletion process automatically after 30 days. The policy also says deleted items are removed from visibility while deletion is pending.

Facebook uses your personal data to show personalized ads and sponsored content, including across Meta products and sometimes off-platform. Even though Meta says it does not sell your personal data, your activity is still used for targeted advertising.

Meta can remove content, restrict features, suspend, disable, or delete accounts for serious or repeated violations, often in its discretion. Some review explanations may be withheld for safety, legal, or technical reasons.

Meta says you can download your information and, in some cases and subject to law, port it. This gives users at least some ability to take their data elsewhere.

For consumers, disputes are governed by the law of your country and may be brought in competent local courts. That is more user-friendly than forcing all users into a distant arbitration forum.

Meta says it will notify users at least 30 days before material Terms changes, unless the change is required by law. That gives users a chance to review updates before they take effect.