Experts warn that browsing history of porn sites may be tracked by Google and Facebook
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Information about what you are watching on a porn site is at the heart of your privacy and is something that many people want to keep secret. However, researchers surveyed more than 20,000 porn sites and found that indeed 93% of third-party domains were sending user browsing history data.
Tracking sex: The implications of widespread sexual data leakage and tracking on porn websites (Preprint, July 2019) --1907.06520.pdf
(PDF file) https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.06520.pdf
Opinion | Facebook and Google Trackers Are Showing Up on Porn Sites --The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/opinion/google-facebook-sex-websites.html
A research team led by Microsoft postdoctoral fellow Elena Maris surveyed 22,484 pornographic sites using software tools that detect and collate websites sending data to third parties. As a result, it was revealed that 93% of the scanned porn sites send data to an average of 7 third-party domains. Even if I was browsing in the secret mode of the browser, the data was transmitted firmly.
User tracking data from porn sites is often collected as cookies. Cookies help identify users who visit your site repeatedly, keep you logged in to your site, and record your settings. Many porn sites have introduced third-party tools to analyze tracking data, and the data is being sent to third-party domains to use the tracking tools.
According to the survey, tracking tools created by Google and its subsidiary DoubleClick were used by 74% of the porn sites surveyed. It has also been confirmed that 24% of porn sites use Oracle's tracking tools and 10% of Facebook tracking tools also use them.
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Embedding tracking tools in websites by operators is not uncommon in the web industry. Many news sites and mail-order sites have similar tracking tools embedded in them to collect user information. Instead of providing a convenient tracking tool to analyze users, third-party companies are said to receive website visitor data anonymously.
However, the research team pointed out that even though the data is anonymous, it is possible to identify individuals using a browser fingerprint that integrates information such as browsing history. In addition, many of the words that make up the URL of a pornographic site directly represent the type of pornography you are browsing, and there is a risk that your personal sexual orientation will be lost even with the URL alone.
'The fact that the tracking mechanism used on adult sites is similar to that on mail-order sites is very significant,' said Maris. Unlike choosing clothes on retail sites, pornography Claims that site browsing history and sexual orientation are far more personal information. Porn sites should think more deeply about the nature of the data they hold.
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It's unclear what third-party companies are doing with data collected from porn sites, and Google and Facebook claim that the data collected by porn sites isn't useful for displaying personal ads, etc. increase. A Google spokeswoman commented, 'Google ads are not allowed on websites that contain adult content, and we do not allow ads or profile creation based on the user's sexual interests.' Facebook also gave a similar explanation, but Oracle did not comment at the time of writing the article.
However, the research team points out that the data itself remains stored at a third party, even if the data is not actively used. Also, only 17% of all porn sites clearly state that they are collecting user tracking data, and many users do not know that their browsing history is being collected by tracking tools. 'Don't mistake silence for consent, just as you would for sexual consent,' Maris said.
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in Web Service, Security, Posted by log1h_ik