This Website Will Dive Into Gmail and Show Everything You've Revealed

Your digital footprint may be bigger than you think.

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Researchers at MIT have developed a website that will venture into your Gmail account and show you everything you have left behind—whether you like what you see, or not.

The website, dubbed Immersion, was launched on June 30. Once users allow the site to access their Gmail account, it will create a map of your networks and "collaborators," meaning, the people they've connected with at least three times before. In the end, it spits out a graph of circles that show all of your relationships via Gmail. “It’s a picture you’ve been painting, not with pigments and brushes, but every time you send an e-mail or get in touch with someone,” said Professor César Hidalgo, who led the project. Once Immersion gathers the information of your recipients—stuff the NSA reportedly can do without your permission—it can paint a picture of your overall connections. 

“Immersion shows you the data that you already share with others,” Hidalgo says. “You log into your e-mail every day, but just by taking a small fraction of your e-mail data and presenting it in a different way, we’re showing how much information people can learn about you from this data." 

This is nothing on what the NSA can do in the big picture; at least you can opt in and out of this test. So, are you leaving too much information behind when it comes to Gmail? Find out here.

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