Understanding Online Tracking Definition and Its Impact

Online tracking is a common phenomenon that affects us all. It involves collecting and storing data about our online activities, such as browsing history, search queries, and clicks.

This data is often used to create a digital profile of us, which can be sold to third-party advertisers. Online tracking can be done through various means, including cookies, pixels, and mobile device IDs.

The use of online tracking raises concerns about our online privacy and security. For instance, if a website is hacked, our personal data could be compromised.

Web tracking is the collection and sharing of information about an individual's activity on the internet, including what they do online and how they go about doing it.

Companies use a variety of software tools, like website trackers, beacons, and other tracking files, to observe how you interact with their websites and to follow you around the internet.

Some people use the terms website tracking and web tracking interchangeably, but they're not exactly the same. In contrast to website tracking, which is simply the practice of monitoring how a website changes over time, web tracking is the collection and sharing of information about an individual's activity on the internet.

Web trackers are inserted into the code of the website you visit with the scope to observe your activity, and then follow you around the internet. They can be owned by websites' hosts, marketing companies, advertising agencies, and even governments.

These technologies can collect every possible piece of information they can, including email addresses, login credentials, payment details, search preferences, how long users stay on websites, accurate location, the type of device used, applications downloaded, and so on.

Web tracking has become essential in marketing strategies, especially for online businesses, by collecting data on website visitors' behavior to gain valuable insights into customer preferences and effectively engage with potential customers.

Online tracking involves various techniques, including HTTP cookies, which collect and send tracking information from your browser to analytics platforms. These cookies are the main source of data for tracking website visitors.

There are five main ways websites track users: HTTP cookies, tracking pixels, fingerprinting, IP addresses, and third-party tracking. Tracking pixels are used in emails to track whether you open an email, click on a link, and follow your journey to becoming a customer.

Browser fingerprinting takes the premise of a cookie and extends it over a longer period, creating a unique digital fingerprint of your audience. This technique uses data such as device model, screen resolution, operating system, and language preferences to identify unique visitors.

Websites can also use web beacons, or pixel tracking, to track user behavior, such as clicks and page views. This technique is often used in emails and web pages to monitor user activity.

Here are the main types of online tracking:

Browser fingerprinting and canvas fingerprinting are two advanced techniques used by websites to track user behavior. These techniques use data such as device specifications and screen resolution to create a unique fingerprint of each user.

First-party tracking is performed by the website you're visiting, and it's generally not something to worry about, as it helps them load your preferred language and settings.

First-party tracking monitors your behavior to remember your preferences, such as the type of content you usually prefer and your language settings.

You probably want the sites you visit frequently to load in your preferred language, so first-party tracking can be beneficial in that sense.

The situation gets murkier if first-party sites sell access to your data to marketers.

Third-party tracking happens when parties other than the website you're using also track your activity there.

You may visit a news site to read their content without realizing that the site also loads third-party cookies that track your behavior on other sites.

Third-party behavioral tracking is often used to help advertisers tailor their ads to your implied preferences.

The definition of a third-party website includes all the websites that can also see what you're doing on other sites.

Here's a section on the five main types of trackers:

HTTP cookies collect and send tracking information from your visitor's web browser to your analytics platform, providing valuable insights into how people interact with your content.

A tracking pixel is a snippet of HTML code that marketers can embed into outbound emails to track whether you open an email, click on a link within the email, and follow your journey all the way through to becoming a customer.

Fingerprinting takes the premise of a cookie and extends it over a longer period by retrieving continuous data to create a "digital fingerprint" of your audience.

IP addresses are a series of numbers that identify your device on the internet, and websites use IP tracking to keep tabs on where their visitors are coming from and identify behavior patterns.

Websites can use IP addresses to identify the business your visitor works for by looking up the domain associated with an IP address.

Beacons are tiny, invisible images embedded in web pages or emails that track user behavior. They're like tiny hidden cameras, monitoring what you're doing.

Websites and emails use web beacons to log user behavior, often in the form of a single-pixel transparent graphic image. These beacons work like cookies in that they're used to track users for website analytics and advertising purposes.

On websites, beacons monitor how you use a page or navigate through a series of pages, and companies use this information to tailor their services and offerings to your behavior and preferences. This data can be used to create targeted ads that are more likely to appeal to you.

The Facebook pixel is a nearly ubiquitous web beacon that equips site owners with massive amounts of data to use in Facebook ad campaigns. By tracking when and how often you shop, and how much you buy, the Facebook pixel lets advertisers target ads to people most likely to buy again.

Beacons also facilitate IP address tracking in emails. When you open an email containing an embedded beacon, that beacon will log the exact time and date at which you did so as well as your IP address.

There are several methods websites use to track users, including HTTP cookies, tracking pixels, fingerprinting, and browser fingerprinting. HTTP cookies collect and send tracking information from a visitor's web browser to an analytics platform.

Fingerprinting takes the premise of a cookie and extends it over a longer period, creating a "digital fingerprint" of a user's audience. This method surpasses traditional cookie tracking in its ability to create persistent user profiles.

Browser fingerprinting is a sophisticated tracking technique that allows websites to uniquely identify visitors through their web browsers' distinctive data profiles. It involves collecting and analyzing various data points from a user's web browser to create a unique fingerprint.

Canvas fingerprinting results from websites learning how a user's browser responds to graphical instructions, providing information about their unique digital fingerprint. This method is highly accurate when paired with other tracking information.

Websites can also track users through their IP addresses, which can provide detailed information about a user's business or location. This tracking method is used by marketers to understand how their email audience uses their website and determine if it is a high-converting channel.

Here are the main tracking methods used by websites:

Companies track you on the web because your data is extremely valuable, and they want to learn as much about you as they can.

Pretty much every website, service provider, or app you use tracks your internet activity, including Google, Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Your data is also in the hands of data brokers, which aggregate data and sell it to other parties.

You can control whether or not a company can access your location data, but if you don't share it, they can't track it.

Some websites allow you to download the data they have on you, giving you a glimpse into how much of your personal life is exposed online.

Companies use various tools and methods to gather insights about your behavior and preferences on the web, and you don't have any guarantee of privacy on the internet if you aren't using dedicated anti-tracking tools.

Websites with EU-based visitors must clearly disclose their web tracking practices and ensure that the data they share cannot identify individuals under GDPR.

If your site collects personal data, it must be for a "legitimate interest" and the visitor must be able to grant or deny consent, which can be done through a cookie notification.

Companies track users because they want to learn as much about you as they can, and this knowledge allows them to tailor their apps to your preferences and target you with messages you're more likely to engage with.

In today's digital age, your data is extremely valuable, and companies use a variety of tools and methods to gather insights about your behavior and preferences on the web.

Websites can track users for any number of reasons, but the main use case is in marketing teams, who use data for performance tracking, building buyer personas, and mapping the buyer journey.

Companies use data to support themselves financially, whether it's through advertising revenue or direct financial support from users, as seen with YouTube content creators and journalism providers.

Marketers can use data to measure how well their marketing campaigns are doing, and to gauge website performance and lead attribution, making it impossible to do without any tracking in place.

Websites can track users to build out buyer personas, such as visitors from the US who read in English and stay on remote working pages, and to find out where converting customers click on the site and what types of outbound marketing they respond to.

Web tracking is largely a legal practice, with countries and regions having varying levels of regulation. The US, for example, lacks specific anti-tracking legislation at the federal level.

Many countries currently lack specific web tracking regulations, meaning it's legal until it's not. This includes the US, where similar rules exist for telemarketing phone calls.

Even though you can send a Do Not Track message to websites, they're under no legal obligation to honor it unless they've previously agreed to do so. This is because many countries lack specific web tracking regulations.

Companies must meet data privacy requirements to make web tracking legal. Many countries have specific data-protection laws to define which data can be collected and how long it can be stored.

The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires website operators to have a visitor's consent before tracking them through cookies. This was amended in 2018.

The UK retains the same data-protection law despite no longer being a member of the European Union. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) also rules similar requirements in the US.

Most people simply click on 'allow everything' when it comes to tracking cookies without reading the terms and conditions. Research has found that over 90% of users never read service policies before accepting them.

Even with customizable preferences around tracking cookies, many people don't take advantage of this option.

Online tracking can be a sneaky business, and it's essential to understand the risks involved. Web tracking can be used to build a unique digital profile of you, using your IP address, personal info, and browsing habits.

This profiling can be used in many ways, sometimes unethical. The Cambridge Analytica scandal is a prime example, where 87 million Facebook profiles were harvested to influence the 2016 US presidential election.

Tracker profiling can also be used by governments and public health sites to gather data on users. In fact, almost 90% of EU government sites use invisible trackers, and many popular health apps harvest user data as a common practice.

The implications of web tracking are far-reaching. Tech giants like Google and Amazon use web tracking to understand your behavior, often more intimately than you do. They can use this data to anticipate your actions and desires, placing targeted ads on your device at the right time.

To put it into perspective, advertising agencies have been tracking users on over 100 websites that cater to vulnerable groups, such as undocumented immigrants, domestic abuse survivors, and LGBTQ individuals.

Here are some key risks associated with online tracking:

Online tracking is a serious concern in today's digital age. You can prevent web tracking on your own, regardless of whether you live under the EU’s GDPR regulations.

Using tracker blockers, like Avast AntiTrack, can help block cookies and prevent web tracking. Avast AntiTrack is available for free download on PC and Mac.

Switching to a private search engine, such as DuckDuckGo, can also help protect your data. Some VPN providers, like Surfshark, have developed their own software to block ad-trackers.

Connecting through a VPN service can secure your browsing and protect your IP address. Some VPN providers, like ExpressVPN and NordVPN, have developed features to block ad-trackers.

Change your browser settings to enable the block on third-party cookies. However, some sites may ignore this.

Regularly clearing your cookies and browsing history can also help, but this practice is only a temporary hack.

You can disguise your browser fingerprint with anti-tracking software, such as Avast AntiTrack, to keep your identity safe against web tracking.

Here are some ways to prevent online tracking:

A secure browser, like Avast Secure Browser, can outfit you with anti-tracking protection built right in.

Cookies are small text files that get stored in your browser when you visit a website that uses them, and they're perhaps the most well-known type of browser tracking. First-party cookies are created by the website you're visiting, and they help that site remember what you like and what you're doing.

First-party cookies can be either session cookies or persistent cookies. Session cookies are temporary and expire after a session ends, while persistent cookies are stored on your device between browsing sessions. Persistent cookies are often used for remembering settings or targeting advertising.

Third-party cookies, on the other hand, are created by parties other than the website you're visiting. These are the tracking cookies that follow you as you browse from one website to the next. Website analytics and advertising are two of the primary uses for tracking cookies.

Here are the main types of cookies:

You can download a tracker blocker tool as an extension to plug-in your browser to prevent third-party trackers from spying on you. However, they don't block web tracking directly coming from your browser provider.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that helps businesses track website traffic and analyze various metrics, making informed data-driven decisions.

With Google Analytics, you can track website traffic, including visitor counts, bounce rates, page views, and conversion rates.

As of this year, Google Analytics is used by roughly 28.1 million websites, which is approximately 55 percent of all websites worldwide.

Google Analytics offers various metrics and dimensions to understand website performance, including visitor counts, bounce rates, page views, and conversion rates.

Dimensions provide additional context by categorizing data based on the device used, traffic source, or location.

Analyzing these metrics and dimensions will provide insight into how your website is performing, allowing you to optimize your online presence.

Google Analytics also offers real-time tracking and reporting tool, which allows businesses to monitor website activity as it happens.

This feature offers an instant breakdown of visitor behavior, traffic sources, and content engagement.

Advanced segments allow you to isolate and analyze specific subsets of data based on criteria like demographics or user behavior, helping you tailor strategies accordingly.

Event tracking enables businesses to monitor user interactions such as clicks, downloads, and video views.

This feature provides information about user engagement and can measure the success of specific actions, aiding content and design optimization.

For e-commerce websites, Google Analytics provides robust e-commerce tracking capabilities, tracking revenue, transactions, and product performance.

Cross-domain and subdomain tracking gives businesses a holistic view of user interactions across multiple websites or domains.

Audience insights provide valuable demographic information such as age, gender, and interests, enabling businesses to tailor content and marketing efforts accordingly.

Getting to grips with acquisition sources and channels will help you to enhance your marketing efforts by identifying the most productive channels for traffic and conversions.

Behavior flow data shows the path users take through the website and the pages they visit, letting you identify popular pages, improve navigation, and enhance user experience.

Here's a brief overview of the key features of Google Analytics:

Online tracking can be a complex and sensitive topic, but there are some best practices that businesses can follow to cultivate trust and loyalty with their users.

Using tracker blockers is a good starting point, as they can prevent third-party trackers from spying on users. You can download a tracker blocker tool as an extension to plug-in your browser, which also works as an ad-blocker.

Switching to a private search engine is another effective way to protect user data. Opt for a more private option like DuckDuckGo to browse anonymously and protect your data. Some VPN providers have even developed their own private search engines.

Securing your browsing through a VPN service is also crucial, as it can block ad-trackers and protect your IP address. Some providers, like ExpressVPN and NordVPN, have developed features to block ad-trackers.

Clearing your cookies regularly is another good habit to get into, but remember that this practice is only temporary as trackers will be loaded on your browser again.