Issues with tracking

Tracking raises many concerns. First of all, while we become more transparent, a lot of the current practices, and the parties employing them, are highly opaque. We are unaware how much of our activity online is registered, analysed and used, by how many different parties and for what purposes.

Second of all, the information collected through trackers makes us susceptible to manipulation. This can have serious consequences for the power (im)balances between citizens and consumers on the one hand and governments, corporations and other organisations that have access to this data on the other. Just think of the instrumental role tracking plays in micro-targeted political advertising, price discrimination or exploiting the cognitive biases and specific weaknesses of individual users.