When it comes to user tracking on the Internet, Google continues to have a firm hold on the top positions. Kaspersky released its annual web tracking report for the past year.
The data comes from a Do Not Track plugin that Kaspersky uses in its software products. It is designed to prevent different forms of tracking, but is disabled by default.
The key findings:
- Google dominates tracking on the Internet.
- Other companies that track users are Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo.
Note: The data comes from products from a single company. It may not reflect the monitoring landscape as accurately as possible because of that.
Google’s dominance becomes clear when you look at regional tracking. Here in Europe, Google Display & Video 360, and Google Analytics are the dominating trackers with an exposure of 17.27% and 11.93%. Third-placed Amazon sits at 9.13% and fourth placed Criteo at 6.80.
Then it is Google again with YouTube Analytics (5.65%), Microsoft with Bing (5.33%) and Google again with Adsense (5.23%).
In North America, it is again Google Display & Video 360 (16.84%) that dominates. Amazon is second this time (9.08%), but then it is Google again with Analytics (8.42%). Google is also placed fifth and sixth in North America.
The situation is similar in other regions. In Latin America, Google holds the first three spots and the fifth. In the Middle East, Google holds the first four spots. In Africa, it is the top three and the sixth.
It is interesting to note that some Google services lost eyes on users compared to the year before in many regions. Growth was limited to East Asia and Commonwealth of independent states. Google’s monitoring declined in all other regions, but it still dominates by a large margin.
Google Adsense and YouTube Analytics are the two exceptions. They managed to increase significantly in nearly every region.
You can check out the entire report on the Secure List website.
How do you protect yourself from tracking? Do you run content blockers? Other options? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
Be noted with a smile that securelist[.]com, accessed via Yandex servers located in Russia, connects to 3rd-party Facebook and Google servers (which i block personally) , not to mention several connections blocked by ‘uBlock Origin’ filter lists …
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Who could possibly be surprised by Google being awarded King Of Trackland?
Google and others of GAFAM are avoided and blocked to the maximum extent, and we’ll carry on this way.
I do not blame Martin for being off his game. If you post two articles a day on each of two websites that we know he writes for, you do not have too much time for research. At least, we are not getting 100% ChatGPT generated slop. Thanks for that.
I have all Microsoft trackers including Bing blocked on host level and by O&O Shutup app. All YouTube trackers are blocked by Brave Content Blocker. Most of Amazon Analytics are blocked by Brave Content Blocker on Amazon.com and all of it on the web. All AdSense and other Google tracking is blocked by Brave Content Blocker, with some whitelisting on major websites that would not open without it. The same goes for all other trackers.
Keep your trusted privacy related AdBlock lists auto updated and use only the best Ad Blocker extensions or built in browser content blockers. If you have great tech skills, invest in Pi-hole to secure from trackers your whole home network, including IOT devices. Use VPN and secure messengers when you need extra privacy. It will not save you from Governments spies and ISPs, but it will make harvesting your information way more difficult, and not worth the effort for most commercial trackers. And for the hundreds time: do not buy electronics/devices that have to be connected to Internet to work, if similar devices always worked without it before (Printers/Computer Mouses/External Hard Drives/Door Bells/Nanny Cams/Automatic Floor Cleaners/Refrigerators/Washing Machines and so on).
And to those who live in Stone Age: Your home Alexa widgets and your Car Infotainment system and Amazon (Fire TV/Firestick)/Roku TV Voice Recognition systems are spying on you 24/7. You can not disable tracking on those (Maybe you can hack Car Infotainment and void the warranty). It’s their whole functionality.
Sorry for the rant.
I block jscript from google such as the one on this site.
Not wishing to jump the gun so to speak, but an article in your newsletter which I’m subscribed to features a link to NOYB regarding Mozilla’s intention to begin tracking users without their express consent. Here’s the link to the NOYB’s article: https://noyb.eu/en/firefox-tracks-you-privacy-preserving-feature
Why Mozilla took this decision is really extraordinary given that they’ve always stated that their policy is to protect users from businesses who try to circumvent such protections and yet here they are doing exactly the same thing.
I’ve been through the about:config settings, but can’t find any that point to what Mozilla is proposing. Maybe the update which has supposedly been installed already wasn’t included in 115.15.0esr, but as far as I can tell there isn’t anything on the Web other than other sites such as Bleeping Computer referring to the same story.
Bad news in any event and I guess I’ll have to look for an alternative browser once again.
You can check out my article on this here: https://chipp.in/security-privacy/how-to-disable-firefoxs-built-in-ad-tracking-feature/
Google does not like this site very much, unfortunately 😉
Thanks Martin, I remember reading the article now and checking the about:config setting. In 115.15.0esr that setting doesn’t appear. So I guess Mozilla isn’t going to include it in the older version.
Can’t find anything in FF Android version 130.0.1 either (which is good news).
Like Chrome, Firefox has few privacy-oriented browser forks. You can keep Firefox for official stuff like accessing banks, utility companies, government, work related websites. For personal life, you should use privacy fork browser. The same with communication. For work and official business: Microsoft Teams, Skype, Zoom and Facebook chat. For personal life: something encrypted without tons of features but without AI or proof of ID.
I also noticed that you are a little naive: not an insult. I was much more naive than you when I was younger. Do you remember the Goggle slogan: “Do not be evil”? Where is it today? Aren’t they one of the most evil companies in the world by most opinions? Or Ford’s slogan, “Ford tough!” For the last few years they had more recalls on engines/transmissions/electrical/frames than any car company ever and no sign of improvement. People on top change and their motivations change, and that flows into changes for every company or organization they are on top off. Just to add one more example: Wikipedia. They can function easily on $15-$20M yearly budget since their editors/moderators are not paid and all their data is in text that can be downloaded on 10-year-old flash drive. But they choose to collect $180M yearly in donations, cooperate with corporations and some political organizations/politicians in retconning their history/biographies, have the best benefits for managers in non-profit industry and tell regular visitors that they can go out of business at any moment. Everything changes and more often what start good is not going to get better. It is going to get worse.