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Who Is Tracking Me Online and Why?
Here is How You Thwart Internet Trackers
So, now that you have unlimited time to spend on your computer, are you aware that your web searches are being tracked?
What is Internet tracking? And why are they tracking you?
It involves collecting information about you and your use of the information you are finding online.
What to do? How do you stop web site tracking? There are steps you can take to help reduce the amount of tracking you create, but it’s not easy. Once they identify you it assembles information and creates your profile. There are several tools you can upload that will help with this process.
Robert Heaton, a software engineer at Stripe, is impressed with the online tracking industry, but also recognizes the impact it has on everyday Internet users. “It is both horrifying and begrudgingly impressive. No human being wants to give trackers any of their data. No one wants trackers to know which websites they’ve been looking at, what their email address is or which other devices also belong to them.”
However, Heaton says there are some tools you can employ to limit the activity in addition to changing your browser. Let’s say you go to a website about cooking? The “tracking” system wants to see what you are doing on that site and if you click through to a recipe?”
Heaton went on to say it will identify that item and then offer it up as an ad on your Google search page. Basically, it is becoming your personal search engine with an eye towards getting you to buy something from the ad.
To look deeper, web trackers can collect a lot of information than just your browsing of a website. Web sites also use them to collect your very personal information such as your IP address, where you came from, your geographic location and your browser characteristics.
How Does Online Tracking Work?
According to Dennis O’Reilly, a regular contributor to CNET, a tech product review website, says, “if there’s one important feature missing from all the major browsers, it’s the ability to know at a glance when you’re being tracked, and with a single click and by whom.”
