How much of your online activity is being tracked & how can reducing the amount of tracking improve your experience?

In a nutshell - almost everything you do online is being tracked.

Some of this tracking is contained & understandable. Much like the owner of a physical store keeping an eye on their customers to work out the optimal store layout, website owners can track, understand & improve how people use their websites.

However, there are other layers of wider tracking above individual websites that have turned the internet into a global digital surveillance network.

The History of Online Tracking

It started small in the 2000s, with advertising networks serving online ads across a wide range of websites. These advertising networks implemented cross-site tracking to record what ads users had seen & how they’d responded to them.

The reach of tracking was supercharged in the mid-2000s when Google launched “Google Analytics” & acquired a number of the larger advertising networks. Google Analytics is a free traffic analytics service used by around 75% of popular websites, giving website & app owners in-depth information about who is visiting their websites & what they’re doing.

By the early 2010s, Google owned the most popular search engine, most popular mobile phone operating system, largest online advertising network, most popular browser, most popular video services & most popular analytics service. Across their ecosystem, Google has an incredibly deep & broad view of online activity.

As well as Google, the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft & Apple all leverage their sprawling digital ecosystems for tracking people’s behaviour beyond single websites or apps. There is a nuanced difference between how much data these companies sell vs share vs keep to themselves - but all large tech companies log a mindboggling amount of data about their users.

When Online Tracking Works Too Well

A good example of how creepily accurate online tracking is when people question whether their phones are listening to them.

Multiple cybersecurity studies have found no evidence of constant phone microphone surveillance being used for ads. Yet many people have experienced adverts that suggest the ad company has been listening to their private conversations.

The reality is creepier - ad companies don't need microphone access, they already track enough information to serve ads that seem like they were listening.

When Online Tracking Loses the Plot

On the flipside, these massive ad delivery systems can go horribly wrong. Another common experience people have is being stalked by advertising. They’ll briefly visit a website & then have advertisements for that website follow them for days, weeks or even months.

Then Comes Shadow Surveillance

In the shadows of the internet, digital surveillance companies like Palantir & Clearview AI gather masses of data from across the globe & sell it to corporations, governments, militaries & law enforcement agencies.

How to Reduce Online Tracking

With all of this in mind, you might be feeling motivated to block these companies from tracking you. The reality is, you can only reduce the amount of tracking you’re subjected to, even non-contact jungle tribes have a (small) digital footprint.

In part two of this series, I talked about changing to a more privacy-focused browser - which will go a long way toward reducing website tracking.

But the browser is only part of most people’s online world & the apps on our devices are still collecting a lot of data.

A better layer of protection is blocking nefarious trackers at the point you connect to the internet (your device or your internet router). Here are two options:

AdGuard DNS (Free)

While “Option 1” is easier, use “Option 2” if you can & set it up yourself. This is what I use.

Setup AdGuardDNS: https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html

NextDNS (Free or Paid)

This requires signing up for an account, but the free tier is generous.

Sign-up to NextDNS: https://nextdns.io/

Taking It Further (Optional)

DNS blocking covers network-level tracking, but apps & phones have other ways to track you. You can take further steps via resources like EFF’s Surveillance Self-Defence guide.

However, blocking trackers at the network level takes under 5 minutes & will make a noticeable improvement to your online experience - so it’s a great place to start.