Google and Facebook know if you see porn online, even if you use the "incognito mode": what is the risk

The tools of Google, Facebook and Oracle can track the activity of users accessing badgraphic sites, which poses risks to privacy with respect to badual interests resulting from browsing and filtering data to some thirds.

Porn sites are among the most visited, according to data collected by Alexa, and Pornhub alone – one of the largest portals – received 28,500 million visits in 2017, while YouPorn was using up to 39 to six times more bandwidth. that the video service streaming Hulu

The magnitude that badgraphy acquires online led researchers from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon and Pennsylvania Universities (USA) to take an interest in the implications of these portals for users and their privacy.

For example, they badyzed 22,484 Web pages of badgraphic content, 93% of which filtered user data to third-party companies. "While academics pay close attention to the use of the Internet and to privacy in general, there is little research on the specific implications of privacy from the use of badgraphy online"says the study.

The information collected as part of this activity allows third parties to derive user data related to their badual interests, which may represent "specific risks to personal safety and autonomy in any society that regulates gender." and baduality, "the researchers warned.

To badyze and identify third-party companies that monitor activity, researchers used the webXray and policyXray program to determine if web pages contain privacy rules that in many cases do not slow down monitoring or filtering. Datas.

The study points out that policyXray "investigates not only the identity of the owner of a given tracker, but also that of his parent company," which led to the identification of Alphabet, Facebook (with tools such as the similar button which provides to its customers) or Oracle

"Our results indicate that tracking is rampant on badgraphic sites." In the sample used, researchers identified 230 companies and follow-up services, but most of the followers centered on badgraphic sites were concentrated in a few companies: Google (74%), Oracle (24%) and Facebook (10%) .

The study indicates that activity monitoring in badgraphic pages occurs even though they were viewed with the incognito mode of browsers, as they warn in the text of the study because this only prevents the presence of a record in the browsing history. .