Just when you thought you’d heard about all the latest data breaches (and received the hundredth email telling you your data was stolen) we must shine a spotlight on another insiduous type of data breach that could be stealing and tracking your browsing data on a constant real-time basis.
Let’s talk about Real-Time-Bidding, also known as RTB. This dirty little secret of the internet data mining industry is responsible for collecting and sharing your browsing history with a host of companies that buy and sell data mining information, which can certainly be used for not-so-savory purposes (like profiling Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters’ activities).
Data is tracked through the use of cookies, which are embedded in websites and can track everything from search and browser history, what websites you previously visited, what you googled, your IP address, and on-site behavior such as scrolling speed, where you clicked and where your mouse hovered. This data is collected and sold to all sorts of companies, not just marketers, and for possibly nefarious purposes, like profiling.
While there are many businesses selling RTB/tracking data, it may come as no surprise that Google is the largest broadcaster of browsing data – it tracks and shares what people view online and their real-world location 294 billion times in the U.S. and 197 billion times in Europe EVERY DAY!
It’s like an evil internet-age Groundhog Day – same shit, every. single. day.
Don’t just think this is the tinfoil hat talking: read the Irish Council For Civil Liberties informative report on RTB.
And make sure to protect yourself from tracking hacking by selecting only the bare minimum cookie tracking when you visit a new site, clearing your browser cookies often, avoiding sites that do not have SSL certificates, and never clicking suspicious links.
At Wave Motion Digital, we take privacy and security crazy serious. We offer a full suite of secure web and email hosting, hosted applications and tools that WON’T steal your data, as well as full web development services. Visit us at wmd.dev to learn more.
Oh, and then there is Telemetry. But that’s another blog post for another time.