Google and Facebook Top Biggest Web Tracker List

itwbennett writes "A new report from Evidon, whose browser plug in Ghostery tracks Web trackers, makes it plain that 'if you want to worry about somebody tracking you across the Web, worry about Google,' writes blogger Dan Tynan. Google and Facebook, and their various services, occupy all of the top 5 slots on the Evidon Global Tracker Report's list of the most prolific trackers. 'And if you have any tracking anxiety left over, apply it to social networks like Facebook, G+, and Twitter,' adds Tynan."

Comments

Food for thought

[Missing.Matter]

Google derives 96% of its revenue from advertising. All those shiny "free" Google services you love to play with are the result of their ability to monetize information they gather about you. Without tracking, there is no Google. Just keep that in mind.

Re:Food for thought

[gl4ss]

they should just focus adverts based on what I'm viewing right now and then. NOT by what I viewed a week ago. NOT by what someone else viewed from the same browser a week ago. I'm doing a search for "fucking inkjet cartridges" then fuck, advertise me some fucking inkjet cartridges and porno then. NOT FUCKING AFTER I'VE ALREADY BOUGHT BOTH AND AM ACTUALLY SEARCHING FOR A FUCKING GOOD BROWNIES RECIPE!!!!

the tracking... IT DOES NOTHING, but billions spent on it regardless. how do they know the tracking is "working" in getting you the advertisements you want? well, because they're fucking tracking it so their tracking proves that the tracking experts should be paid lots and lots of money.

Re:Food for thought

[Shihar]

Eh. Who cares? Google trying to make really good ads for me rates pretty damn low on my list of concerns. Hell, if they actually manage to get me to click on a link, it means they found something that I actually care about. I call that a win. I will happily take a good book recommendation that I actually would like to know about over a dancing baby trying to sell me a better mortgage.

Targeted advertising just isn't scary. It is good. Google having that kind of information doesn't scare me.

Where Google and the like become scary is when our own government steps in. I don't care if Google tries to sell me stuff that I want. That is a service. I do care if the government can track down my various aliases and I run into trouble with the law because I vocally declare drug laws and the TSA dumb. Google isn't the problem, it is when my government forces Google to divulge information on me that we have a problem.

Facebook is little worse than Google. Their targeted advertising is perfectly fine, but their constantly shifting privacy settings that desperately want to share private drunk pictures with my boss is fucking annoying.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[CanHasDIY]

Facebook might be the biggest enemy of privacy on the web right now.

I don't think so.

Re:Don't worry

[vux984]

If you were riding a bus, would you expect everyone to cover their ears?

I expect them to "hear" but not deliberately "listen", certainly not to "record", and absolutely not to maintain a linked set of recordings they have made of me at different times I have been on the bus.

This is the social contract most normal people live by.

 

Re:Collusion plugin

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if everyone else noticed that the top two "tracking" sites are also the top two most visited sites on the internet.

Lesson for the day... that's not a coincidence. Everyone wants to capitalize on information in one way or another. The bigger your reach, the more information you have to work with.

Neither says anything about what they're doing with that information. That's the really important part.