Web tracking

IP addresses is what identifies users on the internet. Websites can determine a user's geographical location from your IP address. [5] Every device connected to the internet is assigned their own IP address that allows devices to communicate with one another. The IP address is a core component on how the internet works, and because of the uniqueness of the IP address, they can be used to track you.[6]

HTTP cookies are information that is saved by your web browser. When a user visits a website, the site might store a cookie so it can recognise the users device in the future. When the user returns to the site, it can read the cookie to remember the user from the last visit. Cookies can be used to customise the users browsing experience and used to deliver targeted ads.[7] Some browsing activities that cookies can store are:

• Pages and content you looked at
• What you searched online
• When you clicked on an online advertisement
• What time you visited a site

First party cookies are created by the domain the user is visiting. These are the cookies that are considered good. They help provide a better experience for users.

Third parties are created by sites other than the one users are visiting. They insert additional tracking methods to record what you do online. On-site analytics refers to data collection on the current site. It is used to measure many aspects of user interactions including the number of times a user visits.[8]

• Canvas fingerprinting allows websites to identify and track users using HTML5 canvas elements instead of using a browser cookie.[9]
• Cross-device tracking are used by advertisers to help identify which channels are most successful in helping convert browsers into buyers.[10]
• Click-through rate is used by advertisers to measure the number of clicks they receive on their ads per number of impressions.
• Mouse tracking collects the users mouse cursor positions on the computer.
• Browser fingerprinting relies on your browser and is a way of identifying users every time the go online and track your activity. Through fingerprinting, websites can determine the users operating system, language, time zone, and browser version without your permission.[11]
• Supercookies or "evercookies" can not only be used to track users across the web, but they are also hard to detect and difficult to remove since they are stored in a different place than the standard cookies.[12]
• Session replay scripts allows the ability to replay a visitor's journey on a web site or within a mobile application or web application.[13]
• Web beacons are commonly used to check whether or not an individual who received an email actually read it.

Web browsing is linked to a user's personal information. Location, interests, purchases, and more can be revealed just by what page a user visits. This allows them to draw conclusions about a user, and analyse patterns of activity.[14] Use of web tracking can be controversial when applied in the context of a private individual; and to varying degrees is subject to legislation such as the EU's eCommerce Directive and the UK's Data Protection Act. When it is done without the knowledge of a user, it may be considered a breach of browser security.

In a business-to-business context, understanding a visitor's behaviour in order to identify buying intentions is seen by many commercial organisations as an effective way to target marketing activities.[15] Visiting companies can be approached, both on- and offline, with marketing and sales propositions which are relevant to their current requirements. From the point of view of a sales organisation, engaging with a potential customer when they are actively looking to buy can produce savings in otherwise wasted marketing funds.

There have been solutions for giving users control over third-party web tracking. Opt-out cookies enables users to block websites from installing future cookies. Websites will be told not to install third party advertisers or cookies on your browser which will prevent tracking on the users page.[16] Do Not Track is a web browser setting that can request a web application to disable the tracking of a user. Enabling this feature will send a request to the website users are on to disable their cross-site user tracking.

Contrary to popular belief, browser privacy mode does not prevent (all) tracking attempts because it usually only blocks the storage of information on the visitor site (cookies). It does not help, however, against live data transmissions like the various fingerprinting methods. Such fingerprints can be easily de-anonymized. Many times, the functionality of the website fails. For example, you may not be able to login to the site, or preferences are lost.

• Behavioral analytics provides insight into the actions of people when they are online, usually when they purchase products online.
• Consumer Data Industry Association
• Employee monitoring is the use of workplace surveillance to gather information on the activities and locations of employees.
• Google Chrome#User tracking concerns
• GPS tracking can track the location of an entity or object remotely
• Internet privacy is the level of privacy an individual has while they are connected to the internet [17]
• Internet tracking
• Information privacy
• Network surveillance
• Track and trace is used to track a product's status and monitor their location when transported
• Web analytics is the reporting and analysis of website data to improve the user's experience [18]
• Web beacon is an invisible graphic that is placed on a website to monitor the behavior of the user visiting.[19]

• "Princeton Web Transparency & Accountability Project (WebTap)". Retrieved 2018-02-20. We monitor websites and services to find out what user data companies collect, how they collect it, and what they do with it. With our measurement platform, we study privacy, security, and ethics of consumer data usage
  • "OpenWPM – A privacy measurement framework". Retrieved 2018-02-20.