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Nine Out of Ten of the Internet's Top Websites Are Leaking Your Data

merbs writes: The vast majority of websites you visit are sending your data to third-party sources, usually without your permission or knowledge. That's not exactly breaking news, but the sheer scale and ubiquity of that leakage might be. Tim Libert, a privacy researcher, has published new peer-reviewed research that sought to quantify all the "privacy compromising mechanisms" on the one million most popular websites worldwide. His conclusion? "Findings indicate that nearly 9 in 10 websites leak user data to parties of which the user is likely unaware."

3 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. wrong term by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not leaking it so much as shooting out of a firehouse.

  2. Re:Nine Out of Ten of the Internet's Top Websites. by amicusNYCL · · Score: 4, Informative

    And you think Slashdot doesn't share it for some reason?

    Ghostery is blocking the following on Slashdot:

    Doubleclick (advertising)
    Google Adwords Conversion (advertising)
    Google Analytics
    Janrain
    Scorecard Research Beacon
    Taboola

    It's on Slashdot, and everywhere else.

    Here's a quote from TFA:

    Most troubling is that if you use your browser setting to say 'Do Not Track' me, the explicitly stated policy of nearly all the companies is to flat-out ignore you

    What we need is 9 out of 10 users to start explicitly blocking tracking and advertising, and then flat-out ignore the companies who complain about their bottom line. That article from the advertising industry group talking about how they screwed up rings a little hollow when they are obviously not interested in respecting the requests of consumers to not track them. Enabling Do Not Track is fine, but that only works with the good actors. For everyone else, see below.

    https://www.ghostery.com/
    https://www.ublock.org/
    https://adblockplus.org/

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  3. Re:The very act of being on the internet... by buswolley · · Score: 3, Informative

    https://soylentnews.org/

    Your privacy matters
    Your community matters
    No trackers. Period.
    also note: https

    --

    A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.