What is Third-Party Tracking?
The practice of monitoring user behavior across multiple websites using embedded scripts, pixels, cookies, and fingerprinting techniques.
Third-party tracking is the backbone of surveillance advertising. It follows you across the web to build a profile of your interests, habits, and identity.
How It Works
- Websites embed code from tracking companies (Google, Meta, data brokers)
- This code loads in your browser and can track you across every site that embeds it
- Tracking methods include cookies, fingerprinting, pixel tracking, and local storage
What Gets Tracked
- Every page you visit on participating sites
- How long you spend on each page
- What you click, hover over, and scroll past
- Your device, browser, and location
- Your purchases and search queries
Scale
- Google's tracking code is on ~85% of the top million websites
- Meta's pixel is on ~30% of top websites
- A single browsing session can trigger dozens of third-party trackers
Protection
- Browser: Use Brave or Firefox with strict tracking protection
- Extensions: uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger
- DNS: NextDNS or AdGuard DNS to block trackers at the network level
- VPN: Hides your IP from trackers
Related Terms
Browser Fingerprinting
A tracking technique that collects information about your browser, device, and settings to create a unique identifier. Unlike cookies, fingerprints are nearly impossible to delete and can track you across websites without your knowledge or consent.
Cookie
A small piece of data stored in your web browser by websites you visit. While cookies enable useful features like staying logged in, they're also used extensively for tracking your browsing activity across the web for advertising and analytics purposes.
Traffic Analysis
The process of examining patterns in communication metadata—who talks to whom, when, how often, and how much—to extract intelligence without accessing content. Even encrypted communications leak metadata that can reveal sensitive information.
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