Jon Keegan

Investigative Data Journalist

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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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

July 21, 2020

The Markup

Is This Amazon Review Bullshit?

By Jon Keegan

Spotting the fakes isn’t always possible, but here are some tips.

June 18, 2020

The Markup

Amazon’s Enforcement Failures Leave Open a Back Door to Banned Goods—Some Sold and Shipped by Amazon Itself

By Jon Keegan and Annie Gilbertson

The online giant bans products related to drugs, spying and weapons, but we found plenty for sale; one of the items bought on the site left a grim trail of overdoses.

March 12, 2020

The Markup

What Are My Photos Revealing About Me?

By Jon Keegan

You may be accidentally sharing personal information in your photos.

December 18, 2018

Medium

I Analyzed 122 Hours of Holiday Radio

By Jon Keegan

I set out to answer some questions I had about Christmas songs and 24/7 holiday radio playlists. Was there a golden age of Christmas music? Is it all just covers of old classics? Here are my findings.

November 20, 2018

Medium

I Audited Kai Ryssdal and Molly Wood’s Twitter Accounts

By Jon Keegan

I was asked to audit @kairyssdal and @mollywood’s Twitter accounts looking for signs of an echo chamber. I spoke with them on their podcast and I wrote up my findings.