Ever feel like advertisements are ... following you? From webpages to your social media feeds and maybe even as commercials on your favorite streaming platform?

You’re not alone. You’re being tracked. We all are.

Internet tracking is virtually standard practice for web browsers and internet-connected devices, with websites watching how we engage with their content to improve user experiences and advertisers poring over our data to target us with relevant products and services, among other rationales.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you or your data collected is at risk, but shouldn’t we all know how and why our data is being collected? It’s our data, after all.

What is internet tracking

Internet tracking is an analysis of online users’ behaviors, generally for the purpose of delivering a more personalized browsing experience. It’s also referred to as browser tracking, digital tracking, data tracking, or web tracking.

In simpler terms, internet tracking is how websites study our behavior when we visit them. And it’s more common than you might think, as 79 percent of websites apparently do it. Worth mentioning is that website tracking is not illegal, but it’s also not widely understood.

Why do websites track us?

They say the more you know, the more you understand. That’s pretty much the premise of internet tracking: The more websites know about us, the more they understand us — and, ideally, they use that intel to better serve us.

That can translate into a quicker and more convenient browsing experience on websites. You might even consider and find value in how YouTube or Netflix is so good at suggesting the show you want to binge-watch next. Or that Amazon manages to show you the product you need to buy right when you open the site.

But internet tracking isn’t entirely about user experience. For perspective, here are few more reasons websites track us:

• To create revenue streams: Some websites don’t only store your user data but they might sell it, too, to advertising companies looking to target you with relevant products.

• To help aid law enforcement: Some law enforcement agencies monitor online user behaviors to spy on suspicious individuals.

• To measure business performance: Businesses reference their website analytics, meaning what consumers engage with most on their sites, to inform their content strategies or product releases. 

• To monitor a website’s usability: Keeping a close eye on how website visitors engage with a website can help websites pinpoint and correct any areas that are falling short.

Where our data is tracked online

1.Search engines and internet tracking:

If you’ve ever wondered, “Is Google tracking me?” The answer is yes. Google and other search engines could be considered the primary source of internet tracking. By some counts, Google tracks almost 80 percent of all web traffic. And while their data tracking means are changing, replacing third-party cookies with FLoC, Google and other search engines can harness other internet tracking methods such as fingerprinting and web beacons to deliver a personalized browsing experience.

POTENTIAL THREATS: “Accepting” third-party cookies means you’re accepting the reality that your user data is being taken out of your hands and given to a third party who’s charged with protecting it — and potentially compromising it.

2.Social media and internet tracking:

Social media sites are another common offender of internet tracking — but is it really an offense if they’re piecing together potential friends you might know and delivering news and products you might like? Of course, that answer is entirely subjective. In any event, you might be interested to know Facebook tracks 18 percent of all web traffic and Twitter tracks 7 percent of all traffic, harnessing the powers of account tracking, web beacons, and tracking cookies to help do it.

POTENTIAL THREATS: Cybercriminals could access data broker sites housing your customer data, thanks to third-party cookies, and peddle false advertisements to you containing malware. This is also known as malvertising.

3.Shopping sites and internet tracking:

Ever added a few items to your cart at an e-commerce site and perhaps accidentally closed out of the window, just to find that once you revisit the site all of your items are still saved in your cart? That’s thanks to tracking cookies and potentially account tracking, if you’re logged in to an account. These are just a few of the ways shopping sites track us online, with Amazon accounting for 17 percent of web traffic tracked.

POTENTIAL THREATS: Creating a user account on shopping sites means you’re saving potentially confidential data, like home addresses and payment methods, for later use. This information could be compromised in the event of a data breach.

How to not be tracked online

1. Enable ‘do not track’

In your browser settings, you can enable “do not track” which means you’re sending a request to your browser to not track your browsing activity. At the end of the day, this is just that — a request, and it’s up to every individual website to honor it.

2. Don’t allow cookie tracking on websites

The one is simple: Just click “decline” or “no” when you visit a new website and it asks for your permission to track you using cookies. The downside of this is that declining cookie tracking could also disable certain website features and it’s not mandatory for websites to honor your request.

3. Use tracker blockers

Tracker blockers are browser plug-ins meant to stop internet trackers from collecting information about you.

4. Use an ad blocker

Another browser plug-in, ad blockers do just that — block ads. While this doesn’t actually stop your data from being collected, it can prevent you from receiving targeted advertisements stemming from website tracking.

5. Go incognito

Browsing in an incognito window means no cookies should be saved to your browser. Still, your IP address will be viewable to all sites you visit, because it’s required.

6. Look for HTTPS

Want peace of mind that your data is being handled by a secure site? Simply look for “HTTPS” at the beginning of all URLs you’re visiting, as this is an indication of a secure site.

7. Consider a Proxy

A proxy server is a machine that will handle all your data traffic and act as a middleman between your device and the internet. All your requests will be routed through a proxy server, so your IP address will be completely hidden. Residential proxies, in particular, provide IP addresses that connect to real residential addresses, making it nearly impossible to get banned. This allows you to effectively hide your real IP address, handle geo-restricted content, or scrape and collect data from the web.

Just like PIA Proxy Manageroffers a rotating residential proxy service that constantly rotates and updates your hidden IP, making it a more effective way to improve your online privacy, security and security. PIA Proxy Management gives you your true Internet Service Provider (ISP) IP over a military-grade encrypted network. Connect to our cloud access network through SOCKS, HTTP, HTTPS, OpenVPN, iKev2, PPTP, L2TP, V2ray and other protocols to ensure the security of communication and transactions.

PIA Proxy Manager Residential Rotating Proxy also gives you access to over 50 million proxy pools that alternate with each new request or sticky IP session to keep your session alive for up to 10 minutes. This way, few, if any, websites are able to track you. Unlike free proxy services that are often slow and unreliable, PIA Proxy Manager provides residential proxies for an unlimited number of connections, threads, and countries simultaneously, making it easy to overcome IP restrictions.

8. Use a private search engine

Some browsers are built on the premise of protecting your private information and swear off data tracking to do it — but you may have to pay to use these private search engines.