Web tracking in the era of privacy: Should you be concerned?

If you type in “ATM” into Google search, it will most likely show you the nearest ATMs around you.

If you search for “new sneakers”, you will likely see targeted ads from the visited websites on every other website you visit in the near future.

Convenient or annoying, websites track your actions and collect data about you.

As Google says, they use that data to make “ the products and services you use every day more helpful.“

Let’s discuss web tracking, security, and ethical issues, and should you be concerned.

What is web tracking ?

Web tracking is an activity of collecting data. When you spend time online, websites track all your actions and store that data. Contrary to what most people think, web tracking is not limited to browsing history.

First, it includes personal information about you – gender, age, occupation, device, location, hobbies, and interests. Then, it tracks how you interact with the website – it monitors your clicks, searches, scrolls, hovers, time spent, where you came from, etc.

All this gathered information is used to define and predict you. This is what Google thinks you are. It uses this information to forecast your future actions and interests.

Why are you tracked?

Website owners, marketers, and merchants benefit from this information. The seller of sneakers can use analytics to see who interacts with the website and how. This helps them make data-based decisions, reach targeted people, and increase sales.

The provider of tracking services, for instance, Facebook, uses information about you to predict what products you might like. Based on this data, Facebook suggests the ads (the ones that the merchants bought from Facebook) that might be relevant to you.

In other words, trackers and merchants can use collected data to show you highly personalized content, targeted advertising and hence earn more money.

How do websites track you?

Trackers use three main methods to monitor you: cookies, browser fingerprinting, and web beacons.

Cookies

Yes, the you agree with when you visit a website. A cookie is a small piece of data that is downloaded from your visited website and stored on your device. They are used to identify you, remember your log-in information and preferences, as well as collect your data for advertising purposes.

This is a simple explanation from a Lifehacker:

“You can think of cookies a bit like an event wristband. If you attend a concert and put on your wristband, the door staff will recognize you if you leave and come back.”

Browser fingerprinting

Fingerprinting collects the attributes of your device or browser to build your digital profile. This profile includes information about your device model, operating system, location, language, time zone, plugins. This information is recorded from your browser settings.

Later this data is used to personalize content to you or to show dynamic prices (due to which, unfortunately, you usually pay more). Just think of those websites that you visited a couple of times and noticed the price becoming higher than last time you saw it.

Web beacons

Emails and websites use web beacons to log your behavior on a page. These small single-pixel transparent images pass on information to the trackers about how you interact with the website, whether you open an email, and where or which button do you click when visiting a website.

Web beacons are like small hidden cameras that monitor your actions. They send the information to the website owner so that then he can see statistics and make data-based decisions to improve your experience even further.

Ethical concerns of web tracking

Web tracking comes with risks that users usually have no control over.

A few years ago, the world faced the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook improperly shared the personal data of 87 million people with the political data-analysis firm. This data was later deployed in political campaigns.

Cristopher Wiley, an employee at Cambridge Analytica, said:

“We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons.”

This shows that once deployed, tracker-controlled web tracking can have serious ethical concerns to affect public opinion and individual users.

Trackers can be leaked. Your information too.

Behind each tracker company, there are humans. If large organizations slip and accidentally leak their users’ data, so do the trackers.

On one side, it is a huge loss and cause for concern when your email and password get leaked on some random website. On the other side, the damage is far more devastating when your whole digital identity falls into the hands of a hacker.

It’s the data defining who you are, what you do, what you search for, what you like, where you’ve been, and who you are close with that is at risk.

(Unfortunately, we’re not talking ifs here. It happens. In fact, it has already happened a number of times.)

How to protect your data?

The Internet comes with web tracking, whether we like it or not. Luckily, there are some steps you can take to protect your privacy and security online.

To help you deal with the overwhelming amount of information, we have prepared a short checklist for you – 11 Ways How to Protect Your Personal Information Online .

It’s never too late to take control into your hands and protect your data and privacy on the Internet. Even if you can’t avoid all trackers out there, you can immensely reduce the number of information trackers have on you. And everything starts with educating yourself about what you can and should do.