There’s a saying that data is the new oil(new window) because of how valuable it is to the digital economy. But what’s the value of your data, personally? Depending where you live, information about you could be worth at least several hundred dollars a year to Facebook and Google alone.

For someone living in the United States, your data generated over $600 in revenue for just those two companies last year, according to our analysis of their regulatory filings. (We explain how we reached this number below.)

That doesn’t include the income you generate for other ad tech companies, data brokers, internet service providers, dark web marketplaces, and any number of other entities that leach profit out of your behaviors and attributes.
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Facebook’s numbers were easy to calculate because they disclosed them in the company’s earnings presentation for the third quarter of 2023(new window).

For users in the United States and Canada, the average annual revenue per user was $217.26. (Over 99%(new window) of Facebook revenue comes from advertising.)
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Google reported(new window) $224.47 billion in ad revenue in 2022 (not including YouTube ads). So that comes out to about $47 per year per person globally.

But just like Meta, there’s a geographic disparity with Google’s revenue, too. In 2022, 48% of Google’s total revenue came from the United States. If we assume this proportion holds for ad revenue (it’s not clear whether it does), then US advertisers paid Google $107.75 billion in 2022.

If Google Search market share is also 90% in the US, that’s over 274 million people using Google, and the company earns $393 per year from each of them.
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Your data is also bought and sold in far less obvious ways. Internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon collect your data and surreptitiously use it to sell advertising and analytics services, according to the FTC(new window). And even your car(new window) and grocery store(new window) are watching you.

And then there’s the black market, where hackers steal and sell data on the dark web. The advocacy group Privacy Affairs(new window) found that the average price paid for a single stolen credit card is $110. Bank account login details, passports, and cryptocurrency accounts can run into the thousands. Apart from the market price is the cost to you of identity theft and financial losses.