Tracking cookies (original) (raw)
November 15 2010, 09:10
Browsing the Web is messy these days. You get an awful lot of people putting an awful lot of stuff on your computer that you actually have no interest in at all, but which serves their market research, or somebody else's, or something... all you can really be sure of is that somebody gets paid, but it's not you, and meanwhile someone is collecting staggering amounts of information about your browsing habits.
I don't really care for that, so I thought I'd start blocking the domains of the most egregious tracking services. So I deleted my browser's current crop of cookies, and visited some Web sites—not many, a dozen or so. And in the space of one hour, my browser collected tracking cookies from all the following:
2o7.net
adbrite.com
admdt.com
adroll.com
atdmt.com
bizographics.com
burst-net.com
chartbeat.com
demandbase.com
dmtracker.com
doubleclick.net
eloqua.com
etracker.de
fastclick.net
google-analytics.com
imrworldwide.com
invitemedia.com
ivwbox.de
media6degrees.com
mybuys.com
omniture.com
omtrdc.net
outboundlink.net
quantserve.com
quisma.com
scorecardresearch.com
serving-sys.com
sharethis.com
sitemeter.com
sitestat.com
smartadserver.com
specificclick.net
statcounter.com
tailsweep.com
turn.com
webtrendslive.com
xiti.com
All of these sites serve no purpose at all but to stare over your shoulder as you browse, collecting scads and reams and bolts of information about everything you do on the Web.
Scary shit, yo.