How Websites Track Your Every Move
There is no such thing as absolute privacy and anonymity when using the internet. Most of us use the internet for shopping, managing medical accounts, paying bills, and communicating via email and social media, all of which require us to submit information to establish accounts. Your ISP (internet service provider) can see the sites you visit; they must be able to route data to and from your computer. Sites you visit collect information about the pages and items you shop for. Marketing services like Google and Facebook make money by building extensive consumer profiles that they can then use to sell advertising space.
Not all tracking is intrusive. For instance, when you search for a place to eat, your location information provides restaurant options near you. Your location information is essential for weather and traffic updates. Studies show that we find ads relevant to us less objectionable and that personalized advertising makes our online experience more enjoyable. We each have our level of comfort with tracking methods and levels. Tracking becomes intrusive when it occurs outside the permission levels we desire or have granted or takes place without our knowledge. It is primarily invasive tracking that we are concerned about. Marketers use a variety of techniques to track users on the internet.
Cookies
The most common type of tracking is the cookie. Cookies are small files that a website uses to identify your computer and record pages that you visit, your log-in status, items in your shopping cart, and other information that enhances your website experience. Cookies are necessary for websites to function correctly. Blocking or refusing a website’s essential cookies may render some features inoperable.
Third-party cookies
Cookies become intrusive when a third party, unrelated to the site you are visiting, deposits cookies for marketing or tracking you. Third-party cookies are relatively easy to block, and some browsers (Firefox and Brave, for example) block them by default. Other browsers give you the option to block them. Because of the widespread backlash against third-party cookies, marketers have developed more advanced technologies to track users.
Some states require websites to disclose how they use cookies and give you the option of choosing to accept only strictly necessary cookies and opt-out of marketing, third-party, and other cookies.
URL tracking and fingerprinting
Marketers have increasingly turned to more advanced methods of tracking. URL tracking involves appending a long identifier string to a website URL to track it across the web. Fingerprinting refers to collecting information about the hardware and software on a specific device that, when combined with other databases of user information, can identify individual computers.
Marketing companies have created immense databases of personal information aggregated from numerous sources. This data can include financial, credit, political, travel, associate, and medical information with significant potential for misuse. This data is so vast and complete that companies are sometimes able to predict behavior with the help of AI (artificial intelligence).
Why should you care about tracking? It’s only marketing, right?
Companies collect data to sell for a profit. You have no control over its use. Fraudulent companies use data mining to target victims with legitimate-sounding scams. Credit and banking companies, employers, medical services, and insurance companies use and misuse personal information gleaned from data mining.
What can you do to stop tracking?
It is extremely difficult, time-consuming, and almost impossible to eliminate all tracking. However, you can easily minimize your digital footprint by selecting a privacy-first browser or ensuring you have the correct privacy settings on your current browser. We’ll discuss privacy options for popular browsers next. There are options beyond those we discuss in this course, including browser extensions that strip URL tracking tags and block attempts to fingerprint your device.