Web-tracking is rife on technology vendor websites, with Microsoft among the worst offenders. Tech sites serve up even more trackers than the average online retailer, say browser privacy plug-in devs.
Trackers follow surfers after they visit a website to serve behavioural ads elsewhere online. The technology started in the world of online retail but has recently moved into other areas, such as technology, travel and entertainment websites.
The developers behind ad-tracking browser plug-in Ghostery said they'd logged 137 different trackers on the Microsoft website and 107 on Apple's site, while they logged 66 on Samsung's site and 65 on HP's. Dell has 106. All of these tech sites make greater use of trackers associated with behavioural advertising than specialist retail sites such as Tesco (64), John Lewis (46) and Dabs (12).
Some trackers are associated with website analytics but others are more focused on delivering behavioural ads, and are therefore a bigger privacy concern. Higher numbers of web trackers (Ghostery only counts third-party tools) means more data is being collected and that a website is partnering with more third-party web marketing firms.
