Sep 21, 2023
Beautiful Public Data
Nuclear Weapon Test Films
By Jon Keegan
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories has an archive of an estimated 10,000 films of nuclear weapons tests from the 1940's - 1960's.
Sept. 15, 2023
The Markup
Twitter is Still Throttling Competitors’ Links—Check for Yourself
By Jon Keegan, Dan Phiffer and Joel Eastwood
Loading links to Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, and Substack takes far longer than to other sites. We built a tool so you can check any domain you like
Aug 21, 2023
Beautiful Public Data
All of the 8,331 License Plates in America
By Jon Keegan
States now offer a vast menu of personalized plate options for a dizzying array of organizations, professions, sports teams, causes and other groups.
August 3, 2023
The Markup
How to Quickly Get to the Important Truth Inside Any Privacy Policy
By Jon Keegan and Jesse Woo
An investigative data journalist and a former tech lawyer teach you how to spot tricks and hidden disclosures within these interminable documents—and even how to claw back some privacy
July 1, 2023
The Markup
What Are “Data Clean Rooms”?
By Jon Keegan
The dirt on data brokers’ latest privacy buzzword
June 23, 2023
The Markup
How Your Attention Is Auctioned Off to Advertisers
By Joel Eastwood, Gabriel Hongsdusit, and Jon Keegan
In mere milliseconds, online advertisers scrutinize your personal data and bid for your eyeballs
June 13, 2023
The Markup
Suicide Hotlines Promise Anonymity. Dozens of Their Websites Send Sensitive Data to Facebook
By Colin Lecher and Jon Keegan
The Markup found many sites tied to the national mental health crisis hotline transmitted information on visitors through the Meta Pixel
June 8, 2023
The Markup
From “Heavy Purchasers” of Pregnancy Tests to the Depression-Prone: We Found 650,000 Ways Advertisers Label You
By Jon Keegan and Joel Eastwood
A spreadsheet on ad platform Xandr’s website revealed a massive collection of “audience segments” used to target consumers based on highly specific, sometimes intimate information and inferences
June 1, 2023
The Markup
Life360 Sued for Selling Location Data
By Jon Keegan
A proposed class-action lawsuit cites Markup reporting and claims the family-tracking app did not get user consent to sell location data
May 23, 2023
Beautiful Public Data
Mapping Volcano Eruptions With Drones
By Jon Keegan
Drones have become an essential tool to map, measure and observe the extremely dangerous environments surrounding volcanic eruptions.
May 2, 2023
Beautiful Public Data
Here’s All the Rocks We Hauled Back From the Moon
By Jon Keegan
The 12 human beings who walked on the Moon collected, catalogued and returned 842 pounds of lunar rock and soil. Each sample has been meticulously documented in NASA's Lunar Sample Catalog.
Apr 10, 2023
Beautiful Public Data
1,000 Photos of Dolphin Fins
By Jon Keegan
Scars, scratches and wounds abound in these photos as encounters with unknown creatures and boat propellers leave their marks, imprinting a story of close escapes and cheating death.
Mar 27, 2023
Beautiful Public Data
The Mirror Fusion Test Facility
By Jon Keegan
A decade-long effort to build a machine to unlock the promise of nuclear fusion fell victim to budget constraints and competing science, and was shut down the day it was dedicated. It was never turned on.
Mar 18, 2023
Beautiful Public Data
Special Database 18: 3,248 Mugshots Used for Training Image Recognition Systems
By Jon Keegan
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained a dataset of mugshot photos of 1,573 people for decades, including 175 minors, until we asked about them.
February 22, 2023
NPR
What Kroger is doing with data about customers in its loyalty program
By Jon Keegan
NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with reporter Jon Keegan of The Markup about the data that Kroger grocery chain collects about customers in its loyalty program.
February 16, 2023
The Markup
Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You
By Jon Keegan
When you use supermarket discount cards, you are sharing much more than what is in your cart—and grocery chains like Kroger are reaping huge profits selling this data to brands and advertisers.
Feb 13, 2023
Beautiful Public Data
Pilot Manual for a 1940's U.S. Navy Blimp
By Jon Keegan
This 122 page manual contains all of the operating instructions and technical details needed to pilot this sleek, silver, 250 foot long, weaponized anti-submarine dirigible.
Feb 6, 2023
Beautiful Public Data
The United States Frequency Allocation Chart
By Jon Keegan
This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s most crucial – and invisible – national assets: the radio spectrum.
Jan 9, 2023
Beautiful Public Data
The Style Guide for America’s Highways: The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices
By Jon Keegan
Driving across America, you will encounter a wide variety of cultures, landscapes, people and animals. But the one consistent thing that will stay the same from Maine to California are the signs you pass on the highway. That is because America’s roads and highways have a big, fat style guide.
Dec 29, 2022
Beautiful Public Data
Mapping the Sea Floor
By Jon Keegan
USGS research vessels equipped with cameras, sonar and scanners created a map of 125 square miles of the sea floor off Cape Ann, MA.
Nov 26, 2022
Beautiful Public Data
Vehicle Crash Test Films from the 1970's and 1980s
By Jon Keegan
Deep in the public archives of the NHTSA, there are thousands of films of some classic (and some ugly) 70’s and 80’s cars being smashed into smithereens.
November 8, 2022
The Markup
How Political Campaigns Use Your Phone’s Location to Target You
By Jon Keegan
Before you got in line on Election Day, the emerging and largely unregulated political tracking industry was able to trace your movements.
Nov 7, 2022
Beautiful Public Data
Visualizing Rivers and Floodplains with USGS Data
By Jon Keegan
Using USGS elevation data to visualize stunning views of the flow of water through rivers and floodplains.
Oct 20, 2022
Beautiful Public Data
A Rover's First 590 Days* on Mars
By Jon Keegan
I downloaded 60,000 images to experience what NASA's Perseverance rover has been seeing since landing there in Feb. 2021.
Oct 3, 2022
Beautiful Public Data
Utah Highway LiDAR Scans
By Jon Keegan
Utah's Department of Transportation uses state-of-the-art 3-D laser scanners to capture the surfaces and area surrounding 15,000 miles of its roads.
Sep 27, 2022
Beautiful Public Data
The GOES-16 Weather Satellite
By Jon Keegan
Satellites used to observe weather are so ubiquitous it is easy to take them for granted. GOES-16 is worthy of your attention.
Sep 19, 2022
Beautiful Public Data
The Pillbox Database
By Jon Keegan
The National Library of Medicine's Pillbox dataset contained 8,693 photographs of pills, with an accompanying database of drug information. It was built to help with the identification of unknown pills.
Sep 15, 2022
Beautiful Public Data
Photologging Vans
By Jon Keegan
These sequences are from New York and Connecticut’s state photolog archives, which I obtained through public records requests. Almost every state’s highway departments had highway photolog programs, some dating back as early as 1961. These sequences were captured by specially tricked out vans. The earliest used 16mm film,
Sep 10, 2022
Beautiful Public Data
Highway Photologs
By Jon Keegan
Highway departments all around the country had "photolog" programs, some dating back as early as 1961. Each year, specially tricked out vans would drive each mile of state road snapping photos to document the status of roadways.
July 27, 2022
The Markup
Who Is Collecting Data from Your Car?
By Jon Keegan and Alfred Ng
A firehose of sensitive data from your vehicle is flowing to a group of companies you’ve probably never heard of
July 15, 2022
The Markup
Planned Parenthood Data Found on Another Location Data Dashboard
By Jon Keegan
A free trial dashboard from INRIX listed Planned Parenthood as a “chain,” with at least 71 locations in 35 states.
July 1, 2022
The Markup
Online Abortion Pill Provider Hey Jane Used Tracking Tools That Sent Visitor Data to Meta, Google, and Others
By Jon Keegan and Dara Kerr
Personal information from reviewers was also exposed until The Markup’s inquiry.
June 13, 2022
The Markup
New York State’s “Right to Repair” Law Could Have a Ripple Effect
By Jon Keegan
The passage of the bill could result in a national policy shift.
April 1, 2022
The Markup
Following Markup Investigation, U.S. Regulators Questioned Life360’s Data Practices
By Jon Keegan and Alfred Ng
The family safety company was approached by regulators about its data sales.
March 21, 2022
The Markup
Lawsuit Highlights How Little Control Brokers Have Over Location Data
By Jon Keegan and Alfred Ng
The case suggests this loosely regulated industry can’t deliver on its promises of privacy.
February 24, 2022
The Markup
Who Is Policing the Location Data Industry?
By Alfred Ng and Jon Keegan
Google and Apple have tried to crack down, but location data brokers are moving to a new way to collect your whereabouts that’s much harder to detect
February 17, 2022
The Markup
Family Safety App Touting Digital Security Leaves Its Own Users’ Sensitive Data at Risk
By Alfred Ng and Jon Keegan
Former employees said Life360 executives knew about security gaps
January 27, 2022
The Markup
Life360 Says It Will Stop Selling Precise Location Data
By Jon Keegan and Alfred Ng
Life360 Says It Will Stop Selling Precise Location Data The announcement comes after The Markup identified the family tracking app as one of the largest sources of raw data for the location data industry
January 27, 2022
The Markup
Gay/Bi Dating App, Muslim Prayer Apps Sold Data on People’s Location to a Controversial Data Broker
By Jon Keegan and Alfred Ng
The Markup identified 107 apps that sold data to X‑Mode in 2018 and 2019
December 6, 2021
The Markup
The Popular Family Safety App Life360 Is Selling Precise Location Data on Its Tens of Millions of Users
By Jon Keegan and Alfred Ng
The app is a major source of raw location data for a multibillion-dollar industry that buys, packages, and sells people’s movements
September 30, 2021
The Markup
There’s a Multibillion-Dollar Market for Your Phone’s Location Data
By Jon Keegan and Alfred Ng
A huge but little-known industry has cropped up around monetizing people’s movements.
August 6, 2021
The Markup
Anti-Semitic Merchandise Persists on Pinterest, Despite Restrictions
By Jon Keegan
The Markup found dozens of pins containing hateful content, which raises fresh questions about the platform’s content moderation strategy.
July 9, 2021
The Markup
Facebook Got Rid of Racial Ad Categories. Or Did It?
By Jon Keegan
Our Citizen Browser project found an array of proxies through which advertisers can target Black Facebook users, among otherdemographics.
March 24, 2021
The Markup
We Ran Tests on Every State’s COVID-19 Vaccine Website
By Jon Keegan and Colin Lecher
The results, measuring accessibility and privacy protections, were not always great.
February 16, 2021
The Markup
Trump’s False Posts Were Treated with Kid Gloves by Facebook
By Jon Keegan, Colin Lecher, and Corin Faife
Data from Citizen Browser shows how rare it is for a post to be called “false”—especially if you’re the president.
January 14, 2021
The Markup
Biden and Trump Voters Were Exposed to Radically Different Coverage of the Capitol Riot on Facebook
By Colin Lecher and Jon Keegan
Data from The Markup’s Citizen Browser project shows the different realities Americans inhabited on Facebook surrounding the seige of the U.S. Capitol.
October 20, 2020
The Markup
Why Can’t I Fix My Own Phone, Toaster, or Tractor?
By Jon Keegan
Manufacturers in a broad range of industries have a monopoly on who repairs machines—and when devices are deemed unfixable. Here's a look at the Right to Repair movement and the effort to codify such a right in law.
September 17, 2020
The Markup
Labeled “Research” Chemicals, Doping Drugs Sold Openly on Amazon.com
By Jon Keegan and Annie Gilbertson
Amazon bans injectable drugs, but enforcement failures have led to a swell of listings for unproven performance enhancing peptides.