Google, Facebook May be Leaking your Data
We are aware about the fact that most websites are tracking our location and saving our data and may be selling them that to third party. But the Question is that two top Brands
Google Facebook are also doing that???
For the study, Libert used webXray, his own open source software creation and has been used to analyze trackers on health and porn websites. He found that most websites were not only leaking user data, but also sharing it on the internet.
About his latest findings, Libert wrote, “Sites that leak user data contact an average of nine external domains, indicating that users may be tracked by multiple entities in tandem.”
Libert told Motherboard website that if when one visits any of the top one million websites there is a 90% chance that largely hidden parties will get information about his/her browsing. “Most troubling is that if you use your browser setting to say ‘Do Not Track’ me, the explicitly stated policy of nearly all the companies is to flat-out ignore you,” he further told the website.
Interestingly, Libert called search giant Google as the ‘worst perpetrator’ for tracking 80% of the websites globally and not respecting the DNT (Do Not Track) signals.
On being contacted by Motherboard on the issue, Google’s representative pointed to their ‘terms of service’, which the report says state “it is against company policy for Google Analytics to send personally identifiable information to third-parties. Google also offers extended privacy controls, data sharing settings and an opt-out browser extension for Chrome.”
Libert says, this however is misleading. As he told motherboard, “The company acts as though users have a choice to follow special instructions to opt-out of Analytics, but this is absurdly disingenuous as all Google needs to do is check a simple, and universally available, browser setting,” he said. “It is even more comical when you consider most people never get any notification Google is tracking them. Of course this goes for Facebook and pretty much all other Internet companies as well.”
Facebook appears more forthcoming in its policy which clearly warns its users — in its Terms of Services — that they can and will be tracked on and off the website.