Copywriter, technical writer, translator (FR>EN, ES>EN, IT>EN), journalist

Who watches your browsing?

Thanks to people like Edward Snowden, more people understand how little privacy we actually have these days.

Yet few people realize how many “trackers” follow their every click as they browse the Internet. That’s where people like a team at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design come in. They’re out to distribute knowledge of how people are tracked, and they’re doing this in several ways.

For starters, you can check out short videos they posted about midway down this page that explain how tracking actually works. (The rest of this page also makes good reading.)

Many browsers offer you the option of “private browsing” and, for many people, this does the trick.

If you want to learn how you, specifically, are being tracked, they’re offering a free add-on for Mozilla’s Firefox browser called Lightbeam. You’ll learn, among other things, what third parties (outside of you and the websites you intentionally visit) “know” about your visits.

Be forewarned – this particular rabbit hole runs deep. But if you have any concerns whatsoever about your privacy, Lightbeam will give you a detailed view of how many other parties tag along as you browse.