“Trackers can be placed on sites for various reasons. Google Analytics, for example, feeds traffic data back to websites so they can monitor their traffic. Alternatively, Facebook offers sites the ability to embed its “like” feature, enabling sharing back to Facebook. In return, they receive data about the websites’ visitors.”
(Business Insider) Facebook, Google, and Oracle are tracking the porn you watch, according to a new study first spotted by The New York Times.
Researchers from Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Pennsylvania analyzed 22,484 pornography sites using a tool called webXray to identify tracking tools feeding data back to third parties.
“Our results indicate tracking is endemic on pornography websites: 93% of pages leak user data to a third-party,” the study concludes.
Of the sites scanned in March 2018, the study found Google or its subsidiaries had trackers on 74%, Oracle on 24%, and Facebook on 10%. That translates to roughly 16,638 sites with Google trackers, 5,396 with Oracle, and 2,248 for Facebook.