How unique and trackable is your browser?
Is your browser configuration rare or unique? If so, web sites may be able to track you, even if you limit or disable cookies. “Fingerprinting” may prove a more robust tracking technology than cookies.
Panopticlick tests your browser to see how unique it is based on the information it will share with sites it visits.
Companies today are increasingly tying people’s real-life identities to their online browsing habits. The widening ability to associate people’s real-life identities with their browsing habits marks a privacy milestone, further blurring the already unclear border between our public and private lives. In pursuit of ever more precise and valuable information about potential customers, tracking companies are redefining what it means to be anonymous.
Mozilla has released a free tool called Lightbeam, which helps users of the Firefox browser identify third-party companies tracking their online behavior. The browser add-on is aimed at a mainstream audience and produces a real-time visualisation of all tracking information deposited in the form of cookies on your computer while you browse the internet.
The advertising industry suffered a setback late last night when the Tracking Protection Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium rejected the Digital Advertising Alliance’s draft proposal for a universal Do Not Track standard.
The Wall Street Journal’s documents the new, cutting-edge uses of Internet-tracking technology. The Journal analyzed the tracking files installed on people’s computers by the 50 most popular U.S. websites, plus WSJ.com. The Journal also built an “exposure index” to determine the degree to which each site exposes visitors to monitoring.
We asked a bunch of people to do an interview about online privacy. What they didn’t know is that the interview was about *their* online privacy. Information was found using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, Tumblr, and more.
If your growing weariness of being constantly tethered to the internet has become overwhelming, it might be time to scrub yourself from the social media sphere altogether. Here’s how you can become a ghost on the Internet, by tracking down and eliminating your digital past.
— Read on Comparitech.com
Facebook has found new, far more intrusive ways to exploit your personal information. The company will now use information from your web browsing history to display tailored advertisements on its site.
Microsoft is developing a proprietary tracking system that could follow you from apps to the web and from your PC to your tablet to your videogame console. Just imagine what the NSA could do with it.
Some say you should only be concerned about privacy if you have something to hide. The Zero Knowledge Privacy Foundation hired Newsbound to help explain why this is the wrong way to think about the issue.
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