While the last 18 months have marked a monumental boost in browser performance and the beginnings in earnest of the HTML5 web app era, another important story has also been weaving its way through the fabric of internet society — the increasing importance of privacy on the web. Last year, both the US and EU decided that privacy on the web in general, and tracking cookies in specific, should be taken seriously. As a result, both Chrome and Internet Explorer now have tracking protection extensions, and Mozilla has proposed and implemented a Do Not Track HTTP header.

The thing is, though, until tracking cookies become opt-in, these privacy protection measures are nigh on meaningless. You and I might be savvy enough to know about tracking cookies and how to prevent them from being installed, but the average mom-and-pop user probably hasn’t got a clue. The fact is, until the day that Chrome and Internet Explorer have tracking protection built-in and turned on by default, the majority of web users will remain trackable. That is, unless we can educate the masses about the scary proliferation and implications of tracking cookies… which brings us neatly onto Collusion.

Collusion is a very simple website that visualizes the interwoven mesh and mess of third-party tracking cookies. You install an add-on, and then just start browsing the web. If you have multiple monitors, you can drag the Collusion tab out and watch as your web of browsing history and cookies expands; otherwise, just surf the web for an hour or so, and then take a look at Collusion. What you will see is quite astonishing. Each and every one of the red dots is tracking your movement and behavior across the web. Some of the red dots are obvious, like Google’s DoubleClick ad network — but did you know that the ShareThis and AddThis widgets, which are found on almost every news or blog website, are tracking your clicking and reading habits?

The gray dots mostly represent sites that you’ve explicitly visited, but in some cases they’re third-party sites that haven’t been confirmed as behavior trackers.

Now, you can either use Collusion to shock and appall yourself, or you can use it to show friends and family just how rampant behavioral tracking is. Once your mother sees that no less than five companies track her behavior when she visits MSNBC.com, and six when she visits FoxNews.com, she might be a little more cautious. She might also ask if there’s a way to block the tracking cookies — at which point you promptly install Ghostery and BetterPrivacy on her computer.

Read more at Hacker News



Addendum: ExtremeTech also uses tracking cookies — but its parent company, Ziff Davis, is among the first publishers to fully comply with the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising, or SRPfOBA for short. Every page on all Ziff Davis sites, including this one, displays the AdChoices icon, signifying participation in this system that both shows you which companies are tracking you, and offers you the possibility of opting out of tracking cookies.

If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, you will find the AdChoices icon — click it to find out more!

