Web tracking is the practice by which operators of websites and third parties collect, store and share information about visitors’ activities on the World Wide Web. Analysis of a user's behaviour may be used to provide content that enables the operator to infer their preferences and may be of interest to various parties, such as advertisers.[1][2] Web tracking can be part of visitor management.[3]

Uses of web tracking

The uses of web tracking include the following:

  • Advertising companies actively collect information about users and make profiles that are used to individualize advertisements. User activities include websites visited, watched videos, interactions on social networks, and online transactions. Websites like Netflix and YouTube collect information about what shows users watch, which helps them suggest more shows that they might like. Search engines like Google will keep a record of what users search for, which could help them suggest more relevant searches in the future.[4]
  • Law enforcement agencies may use web tracking to spy on individuals and solve crimes.[5]
  • Web analytics focuses more on the performance of a website as a whole. Web tracking will give insight on how a website is being used and see how long a user spends on a certain page. This can be used to see who may have the most interest in the content of the website.[6]
  • Usability tests is the practice of testing how easy a design is to use. Users are observed as they complete tasks.[7] This would help identify usability problems with a website's design so they can be fixed for easier navigation.

Methods of web tracking

IP address

Every device connected to the Internet is assigned a unique IP address, which is needed to enable devices to communicate with each other. With appropriate software on the host website, the IP address of visitors to the site can be logged and can also be used to determine the visitor's geographical location.[8][9] Logging the IP address can, for example, monitor if a person voted more than once, as well as their viewing pattern. Knowing the visitor's location indicates, besides other things, the country. This may, for example, result in prices being quoted in the local currency, the price or the range of goods that are available, special conditions applying and in some cases requests from or responses to a certain country being blocked entirely. Internet users may circumvent censorship and geo-blocking and protect personal identity and location to stay anonymous on the internet using a VPN connection.

A HTTP cookie is code and information embedded onto a user's device by a website when the user visits the website.[10] The website might then retrieve the information on the cookie on subsequent visits to the website by the user. Cookies can be used to customise the user's browsing experience and to deliver targeted ads.[11] Some browsing activities that cookies can store are:

  • pages and content a user browsed,
  • what a user searched online,
  • when a user clicked on an online advertisement,
  • what time a user visited a site.

First- and third-party cookies

A first-party cookie is created by the website the user is visiting. These cookies are considered "good" since they help the user rather than spy on them. The main goal of first-party cookies is to recognize the user and their preferences so that their desired settings can be applied.[12]

A third-party cookie is created by websites other than the one a user visits. They insert additional tracking code that can record a user's online activity. On-site analytics refers to data collection on the current site. It is used to measure many aspects of user interactions, including the number of times a user visits.[13]

Restrictions on third-party cookies introduced by web browsers are bypassed by some tracking companies using a technique called CNAME cloaking, where a third-party tracking service is assigned a DNS record in the first-party origin domain (usually CNAME) so that it's masqueraded as first-party even though it's a separate entity in legal and organizational terms. This technique is blocked by some browsers and ad blockers using block lists of known trackers.[14][15]

ETags

This section is an excerpt from HTTP ETag § Tracking using ETags.[edit]

ETags can be used to track unique users,[16] as HTTP cookies are increasingly being deleted by privacy-aware users. In July 2011, Ashkan Soltani and a team of researchers at UC Berkeley reported that a number of websites, including Hulu, were using ETags for tracking purposes.[17] Hulu and KISSmetrics have both ceased "respawning" as of 29 July 2011,[18] as KISSmetrics and over 20 of its clients are facing a class-action lawsuit over the use of "undeletable" tracking cookies partially involving the use of ETags.[19]

Because ETags are cached by the browser and returned with subsequent requests for the same resource, a tracking server can simply repeat any ETag received from the browser to ensure an assigned ETag persists indefinitely (in a similar way to persistent cookies). Additional caching headers can also enhance the preservation of ETag data.[20]

ETags may be flushable by clearing the browser cache (implementations vary).

Other methods

  • Canvas fingerprinting allows websites to identify and track users using HTML5 canvas elements instead of using a browser cookie.[21]
  • Cross-device tracking are used by advertisers to help identify which channels are most successful in helping convert browsers into buyers.[22]
  • Click-through rate is used by advertisers to measure the number of clicks they receive on their ads per number of impressions.
  • Mouse tracking collects the user's mouse cursor positions on the computer.
  • Browser fingerprinting relies on your browser and is a way of identifying users every time they go online and track your activity. Through fingerprinting, websites can determine the user's operating system, language, time zone, and browser version without your permission.[23]
  • Supercookies or "evercookies" can not only be used to track users across the web, but they are also hard to detect and difficult to remove since they are stored in a different place than the standard cookies.[24]
  • Session replay scripts allows the ability to replay a visitor's journey on a web site or within a mobile application or web application.[25][26]
  • "Redirect tracking" is the use of redirect pages to track users across websites.[27]
  • Web beacons are commonly used to check whether or not an individual who received an email actually read it.
  • Favicons can be used to track users since they persist across browsing sessions.[28]
  • Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), trialed in Google Chrome in 2021, which intends to replace existing behavioral tracking which relies on tracking individual user actions and aggregating them on the server side with web browser declaring their membership in a behavioral cohort.[29] EFF has criticized FLoC as retaining the fundamental paradigm of surveillance economy, where "each user’s behavior follows them from site to site as a label, inscrutable at a glance but rich with meaning to those in the know".[30]
  • "UID smuggling" was found to be prevalent and largely not mitigated by latest protection tools – such as Firefox's tracking protection and uBlock Origin – by a 2022 study, which also contributed to countermeasures.[31][32]

Controversy

Web browsing is linked to a user's personal information. Location, interests, purchases, and more can be revealed just by what page a user visits. This allows them to draw conclusions about a user, and analyze patterns of activity.[33] Use of web tracking can be controversial when applied in the context of a private individual; and to varying degrees is subject to legislation such as the EU's eCommerce Directive and the UK's Data Protection Act. When it is done without the knowledge of a user, it may be considered a breach of browser security.

Justification

In a business-to-business context, understanding a visitor's behavior in order to identify buying intentions is seen by many commercial organizations as an effective way to target marketing activities.[34] Visiting companies can be approached, both online and offline, with marketing and sales propositions which are relevant to their current requirements. From the point of view of a sales organization, engaging with a potential customer when they are actively looking to buy can produce savings in otherwise wasted marketing funds.

Prevention

The most advanced protection tools are or include Firefox's tracking protection and the browser add-ons uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.[32][35][36]

Moreover, they may include the browser add-on NoScript, the use of an alternative search engine like DuckDuckGo and the use of a VPN. However, VPNs cost money and as of 2023 NoScript may "make general web browsing a pain".[36]

On mobile

On mobile, the most advanced method may be the use of the mobile browser Firefox Focus, which mitigates web tracking on mobile to a large extent, including Total Cookie Protection and similar to the private mode in the conventional Firefox browser.[37][38][39]

Opt-out requests

Users can also control third-party web tracking to some extent by other means. Opt-out cookies let users block websites from installing future cookies. Websites may be blocked from installing third-party advertisers or cookies on a browser, which will prevent tracking on the user's page.[40] Do Not Track is a web browser setting that can request a web application to disable the tracking of a user. Enabling this feature will send a request to the website users are on to voluntarily disable their cross-site user tracking.

Privacy mode

Contrary to popular belief, browser privacy mode does not prevent (all) tracking attempts because it usually only blocks the storage of information on the visitor site (cookies). It does not help, however, against the various fingerprinting methods. Such fingerprints can be de-anonymized.[41] Many times, the functionality of the website fails. For example, one may not be able to log in to the site, or preferences are lost.

Browsers

Some web browsers use "tracking protection" or "tracking prevention" features to block web trackers.[42] The teams behind the NoScript and uBlock add-ons have assisted with developing Firefox's SmartBlock capabilities.[43]

See also

References

  1. ↑ D. Sundarasen, Sheela Devi (2019-04-08). "Institutional characteristics, signaling variables and IPO initial returns". PSU Research Review. 3 (1): 29–49. doi:10.1108/prr-10-2016-0003. ISSN 2399-1747.
  2. ↑ Samarasinghe, Nayanamana; Mannan, Mohammad (2019-11-01). "Towards a global perspective on web tracking". Computers & Security. 87: 101569. doi:10.1016/j.cose.2019.101569. S2CID 199582679.
  3. ↑ Nielsen, Janne (2021-04-27). "Using mixed methods to study the historical use of web beacons in web tracking". International Journal of Digital Humanities. 2 (1–3): 65–88. doi:10.1007/s42803-021-00033-4. ISSN 2524-7832. S2CID 233416836.
  4. ↑ "Internet Safety: Understanding Browser Tracking". GCFGlobal.org. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
  5. ↑ Valentino-DeVries, Jennifer (2019-04-13). "Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police (Published 2019)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2022-10-30. Retrieved 2020-10-23.
  6. ↑ Kleinberg, Samantha; Mishra, Bud (2008). "PSST". Proceedings of the 17th international conference on World Wide Web. New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. pp. 1143–1144. doi:10.1145/1367497.1367697. ISBN 9781605580852. S2CID 15179069.
  7. ↑ "What is Usability Testing?". The Interaction Design Foundation. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
  8. ↑ "What is an IP address?". HowStuffWorks. 2001-01-12. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
  9. ↑ "How cookies track you around the web & how to stop them". Privacy.net. 2018-02-24. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
  10. ↑ Kobusińska, Anna; Pawluczuk, Kamil; Brzeziński, Jerzy (2018). "Big Data fingerprinting information analytics for sustainability". Future Generation Computer Systems. 86: 1321–1337. doi:10.1016/j.future.2017.12.061. S2CID 49646910.
  11. ↑ Martin, Kirsten (2015-12-22). "Data aggregators, consumer data, and responsibility online: Who is tracking consumers online and should they stop?". The Information Society. 32 (1): 51–63. doi:10.1080/01972243.2015.1107166. ISSN 0197-2243. S2CID 205509140.
  12. ↑ "What are first-party cookies?". IONOS Digitalguide. Retrieved 2022-01-13.
  13. ↑ Loshin, David; Reifer, Abie (2013-01-01), Loshin, David; Reifer, Abie (eds.), "Chapter 4. Customer Lifetime and Value Analytics", Using Information to Develop a Culture of Customer Centricity, Morgan Kaufmann, pp. 23–31, ISBN 9780124105430, retrieved 2019-11-11.
  14. ↑ "Online Trackers Are Now Shifting To New Invasive CNAME Cloaking Technique". The Hack Report. 2021-02-27. Retrieved 2021-04-14.
  15. ↑ Dimova, Yana; Acar, Gunes; Olejnik, Lukasz; Joosen, Wouter; Van Goethem, Tom (2021-02-23). "The CNAME of the Game: Large-scale Analysis of DNS-based Tracking Evasion". arXiv:2102.09301 [cs.CR].
  16. ↑ "tracking without cookies". 17 February 2003.
  17. ↑ Ayenson, Mika D.; Wambach, Dietrich James; Soltani, Ashkan; Good, Nathan; Hoofnagle, Chris Jay (29 July 2011). "Flash Cookies and Privacy II: Now with HTML5 and ETag Respawning". SSRN 1898390.
  18. ↑ Soltani, Ashkan (11 August 2011). "Flash Cookies and Privacy II". askhansoltani.org. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
  19. ↑ Anthony, Sebastian (2011-08-04). "AOL, Spotify, GigaOm, Etsy, KISSmetrics sued over undeletable tracking cookies". ExtremeTech. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
  20. ↑ "Cookieless cookies". GitHub lucb1e. 2013-08-25. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
  21. ↑ Andrea Fortuna (2017-11-06). "What is Canvas Fingerprinting and how the companies use it to track you online | So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish". Retrieved 2019-12-13.
  22. ↑ BigCommerce (2019-12-12). "What is cross-device tracking?". BigCommerce. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
  23. ↑ "What is online tracking and how do websites track you?". Koofr blog. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
  24. ↑ "Cookies - Definition - Trend Micro USA". www.trendmicro.com. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
  25. ↑ "Session replay", Wikipedia, 2019-10-15, retrieved 2019-12-13
  26. ↑ "FullStory | Build a More Perfect Digital Experience | FullStory". www.fullstory.com. Retrieved 2021-04-05.
  27. ↑ "Redirect tracking protection - Privacy, permissions, and information security | MDN". developer.mozilla.org. Retrieved 2022-06-29.
  28. ↑ Goodin, Dan (2021-02-19). "New browser-tracking hack works even when you flush caches or go incognito". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2021-02-21.
  29. ↑ "Federated Learning Component". source.chromium.org. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  30. ↑ Cyphers, Bennett (2021-03-03). "Google's FLoC Is a Terrible Idea". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 2021-03-05.
  31. ↑ Patringenaru, Ioana. "New web tracking technique is bypassing privacy protections". University of California-San Diego via techxplore.com. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
  32. 1 2 Randall, Audrey; Snyder, Peter; Ukani, Alisha; Snoeren, Alex C.; Voelker, Geoffrey M.; Savage, Stefan; Schulman, Aaron (25 October 2022). "Measuring UID smuggling in the wild". Proceedings of the 22nd ACM Internet Measurement Conference. Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 230–243. doi:10.1145/3517745.3561415. ISBN 9781450392594. S2CID 250494286.
  33. ↑ Mayer, J. R.; Mitchell, J. C. (May 2012). "Third-Party Web Tracking: Policy and Technology". 2012 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. pp. 413–427. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.388.5781. doi:10.1109/SP.2012.47. ISBN 978-1-4673-1244-8. S2CID 14652884.
  34. ↑ "Website visitor tracking going too far?". Prospectvision.net. Archived from the original on 2012-07-19. Retrieved 2012-08-03.
  35. ↑ Wallen, Jack (24 October 2018). "How to use Ublock Origin and Privacy Badger to prevent browser tracking in Firefox". TechRepublic. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  36. 1 2 "Our Favorite Ad Blockers and Browser Extensions to Protect Privacy". The New York Times. 10 January 2023. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  37. ↑ "Mozilla unveils Total Cookie Protection for Firefox Focus on Android". ZDNET. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  38. ↑ Chen, Brian X. (31 March 2021). "If You Care About Privacy, It's Time to Try a New Web Browser". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  39. ↑ "Firefox enables its anti-tracking feature by default". Engadget. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  40. ↑ "What is an Opt Out Cookie? - All about Cookies". www.allaboutcookies.org. 27 September 2018. Retrieved 2019-11-11.
  41. ↑ "Think you're anonymous online? A third of popular websites are 'fingerprinting' you". Washington Post.
  42. ↑ "Firefox 42.0 release notes".
  43. ↑ Katz, Sarah. "Firefox 87 reveals SmartBlock for private browsing". techxplore.com. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  44. ↑ "What is the Definition of Online Privacy? | Winston & Strawn Legal Glossary". Winston & Strawn. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
  45. ↑ "Web Analytics Basics". www.usability.gov. 2013-10-08. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
  46. ↑ Beal, Vangie (22 January 2002). "What is Web Beacon? Webopedia Definition". www.webopedia.com. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
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