What is Tracking?
The collection and correlation of data about your behavior across devices, sites, and time. Tracking enables targeted advertising, analytics, and surveillance. It's how companies and data brokers build detailed profiles of who you are and what you do.
Also known as: User tracking, Behavioral tracking, Web tracking
Tracking is the engine of surveillance capitalism. Your every click, scroll, and search is logged, correlated, and sold.
How Tracking Works
Cookies
- Third-party cookies follow you across sites
- Ad networks place cookies on thousands of sites
- One cookie = one tracker across the whole web
- Being phased out: browsers blocking third-party cookies
Fingerprinting
- Collect device/browser characteristics
- Create unique ID without cookies
- Can't be cleared—your device is your fingerprint
- Persists in incognito, across browsers
Pixels and Scripts
- Invisible images or JavaScript on every page
- Report back to tracker: "User X visited page Y"
- Social media pixels (Facebook, LinkedIn), analytics (Google)
Cross-Device
- Link your phone, laptop, tablet, TV
- Login, email, or probabilistic matching
- One profile across all your devices
What Gets Tracked
- Pages visited: Every URL, time spent, scroll depth
- Searches: What you look for
- Purchases: What you buy, how much you spend
- Location: Where you go, when
- Social: Who you know, what you share
- Inferred: Interests, demographics, intent to purchase
Privacy Impact
- Profiles: Detailed dossiers sold to advertisers, data brokers, anyone willing to pay
- Manipulation: Targeted ads, content, prices based on your profile
- Discrimination: Same job, different price—based on your data
- Surveillance: Governments request access to commercial tracking data
Defending Against Tracking
- Browser: Block third-party cookies, use privacy-focused browser (Firefox, Brave)
- Extensions: uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, multi-account containers
- DNS: Use privacy DNS (Cloudflare 1.1.1.1, etc.)
- VPN: Hides IP from trackers (doesn't stop cookies/fingerprinting)
- Tor: Strong anonymity, breaks most tracking
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.
Cookies
Small text files that websites store on your device. Cookies can remember login state, preferences, or shopping carts (first-party) — or track you across sites for advertising (third-party). They're one of the primary ways you're followed online.
Cross-Device Tracking
Technologies that link your activity across multiple devices — phone, laptop, tablet, smart TV, and smart speakers — creating a unified identity profile even when you use different browsers, apps, or networks.
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