Google, Facebook track you on sex sites

[reader]

from NY Times (18 July)

Google and Facebook Are Quietly Tracking You on Sex Websites

Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are always watching you — even when you’re browsing pornography websites in incognito mode.

Trackers from tech companies like Google and Facebook are logging your most personal browsing details, according to a forthcoming New Media & Society paper, which scanned 22,484 pornography websites. Where that data ultimately goes is not always clear.

“These porn sites need to think more about the data that they hold and how it’s just as sensitive as something like health information,” said Elena Maris, a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft and the study’s lead author. “Protecting this data is crucial to the safety of its visitors. And what we’ve seen suggests that these websites and platforms might not have thought all of this through like they should have.”

The study’s other authors — Jennifer Henrichsen, doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, and Tim Libert, a Carnegie Mellon computer science instructor — found that 93 percent of the pornography websites they scanned sent data to an average of seven third-party domains. The authors used webXray, an open-source software tool, which detects and matches third party data requests to scan sites. Most of that information (79 percent of websites that transmitted user data) was sent via tracking cookies from outside companies.

Web tracking varies around the web. Frequently users are tracked via cookies, which are bits of text downloaded by your web browser when you visit a site. Other times trackers come in the form of invisible embedded pixels on your screen. In most cases, these trackers help sites identify and classify repeat visitors. They can help you stay logged onto a site, record your preferences and help manage your advertising profiles.

The study found that Google (or one of its subsidiary companies like the advertising platform DoubleClick) had trackers on 74 percent of the pornography sites. Trackers from the software company Oracle showed up on 24 percent of sites, and Facebook, which does not permit pornographic content or nudity on any of its platforms, had trackers on 10 percent of the sex websites scanned by the study.

Why are the trackers there in the first place? Most of the third-party code embedded in these websites is currently standard practice in the publishing industry. The New York Times embeds similar trackers and collects, uses and shares data about readers as part of its business practices. Some trackers, like those for Google Analytics, provide mundane traffic data to the site. DoubleClick and others provide the infrastructure to run advertising. 

In exchange, these third-party companies receive data from the website’s visitors. Advertisers and platforms argue that this data is anonymous. And while some of it is basic (device type), other information (your I.P. address or your phone’s advertising identification number) could be used to reverse engineer your identity and match you with already existing marketing profiles. 

What these companies might be doing with pornography-site browsing data is a mystery. Oracle, which owns a number of large data broker and has been called a “privacy deathstar,” could, for example add data collected by trackers with its current profiles. In the cases of Google and Facebook, which refuse to host pornographic sexual content on a number of their platforms, it’s not always clear why they are collecting such sensitive information, even if unintentionally.

Facebook and Google denied that potential information collected by their trackers on pornography websites was used for creating marketing profiles intended to advertise to individuals.

“We don’t allow Google Ads on websites with adult content and we prohibit personalized advertising and advertising profiles based on a user’s sexual interests or related activities online,” a Google spokeswoman wrote in a statement. “Additionally, tags for our ad services are never allowed to transmit personally identifiable information isto Google.” 

A Facebook spokesman offered a similar explanation, noting that the company’s community guidelines forbid sex websites to use the company’s tracking tools for business purposes like advertising. Though Facebook’s pixel tracker is open for any third party to install on its website — you don’t need permission to embed it — the company suggested it blocks pornography sites and, in those cases, does not collect information from those properties. The spokesman suggested that when alerted to new sex websites using the tools, the company will enforce against them.

Oracle did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

But even if the data is technically anonymous and not used for targeted ads, some browsing information may still end up in the company logs. And when it comes to pornography websites, the most basic browsing data is intensely personal because it is revealing. As Dr. Libert and Dr. Maris note in the study, nearly 45 percent of pornography site URLs “expose or strongly suggest the site content” and in doing so might reveal a visitor’s sexual identity or orientation, or lead third parties to assume a visitor’s sexual interests. “It can be very sensitive,” Dr. Maris said, citing URLs for specific interests like bestiality, and teenage and incest content.

“The fact that the mechanism for adult site tracking is so similar to, say, online retail should be a huge red flag,” Dr. Maris said. “This isn’t picking out a sweater and seeing it follow you across the web. This is so much more specific and deeply personal.” 

The study found that only 17 percent of the 22,484 sites scanned were encrypted, suggesting that troves of user data could be vulnerable to hacking or breaches.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/opinion/google-facebook-sex-websites.html

[vinapu]

if somebody is surprised with all above , certainly is not me. Everything we do on our computers is vulnerable to hacking and breaches.

[TotallyOz]

Not surprising at all. All I have to do is look at something on Amazon and I start getting ads on Facebook. Oddly, a year ago I thought about a carousel tea decoration and then all of the sudden they started appearing all over the internet. Now, who in their right mind wants one of these things?  Second, I was surprised at how many places I could find them. But, it was just a 10 second thought.

Now, on Facebook, I am getting tons of apartment ads for Sao Paulo. Why?  I don't know. I can't figure it out. But, they think I want a multi-million dollar apartment in Sao Paulo. I must have clicked some link at some point. Or, is everyone getting sold Penthouse apartments in Sao Paulo.

I do wish that when I clicked on a hot guy on a gay app that the app would start recommending other similar twinks to me. Now, that is one way I'd love my data to be used esp. in Bangkok when I log in and there are hundreds of guys within a few miles of me. When I'm home in Alabama, there are only around 50 within 100 miles so I don't need much help there. But, I'd love some direct targeting in Bangkok.

[ggobkk]

Regarding Sao Paulo - it may be a Numazu effect!