In news that should shock no one afterwards Best Product Pro reported similar stats last year, it turns out that Google’s web trackers make up half of all trackers found online.
Analyzing data from security visualization company Lokker’s last semi-annual Online data privacy report (opens in new tab)VPN service Atlas VPN has revealed that of all trackers found on the internet, a whopping 49.9% are from Google alone.
YouTube and Doubleclick, both Google companies, have 13.8% and 8.3% of online trackers respectively. Facebook’s trackers make up 15.7% of online trackers, Microsoft made the list with 6%, while Hotjar, a behavior analytics tool, has 6.3%.
Storing sensitive data
Internet sites are full of trackers – small website elements that follow people as they go about their digital business. Several technology companies then use these trackers to create pseudonymous profiles of users and sell them to advertisers.
These profiles make it seem like some ads are following you across the vast expanses of the internet, while others seem eerily relevant to your interests – even if you’re not logged into a service owned by the tech giants responsible.
All in all, no less than 93.7% of all online trackers come from Google, Facebook or Microsoft.
These trackers are used to track people’s browsing habits and store IP addresses and other personal information. They help businesses understand how consumers interact with websites and make purchases.
However, there are other privacy threats that can compromise people’s online safety and that are being exploited by major tech companies. For example, session replay scripts were found on 35% of the websites analyzed.
These scripts record sessions (people’s interactions with a website) to better understand how they behave when they visit a particular page (how long they stay, where they click, how far they scroll, etc.).
Since these scripts can also record personally identifiable information that can make users more susceptible to identity theft, users should consider measures to block them, such as a secure browser.