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How Netflix Got Me To Watch Ace Ventura — the 4th Time?

How streaming apps track each of your clicks, and suggest content. What that tells about you and how you could use it to predict your future.

Markus Lampinen
Towards Data Science
4 min readJun 23, 2020

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“Boring”, I thought to myself going through spreadsheets of my Netflix data. Then I found a file called “Clickstream” and that Netflix tracks every click I’ve ever made.

Denise Jans on Unsplash

How did you come to like that sitcom you watched for four seasons, over 40 episodes? How about that documentary on life in the oceans? Was it your choice, or was it a choice severely aided by suggestions and placement by an intelligent engine?

You can download your Netflix data by going to your “Account” in the top right menu when signed into Netflix and navigating to “Download Your Personal Information.” The great news is its prominent, easy to find. The bad news? Well, I got my data on June 14 (see below) after my request on May 17th.

While this is perfectly within the current statute for data requests, it is a long time for a data geek to wait for an archive of files to play with.

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Towards Data Science
Towards Data Science

Published in Towards Data Science

Your home for data science and AI. The world’s leading publication for data science, data analytics, data engineering, machine learning, and artificial intelligence professionals.

Markus Lampinen
Markus Lampinen

Written by Markus Lampinen

Entrepreneur in data, fintech. Likes puzzles. Passionate about personal freedom. Building separation of data from apps.

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