Ever wondered who’s watching you as you surf the web? Mozilla has released an add-on for web-browser Firefox that reveals online data tracking, allowing users to see who exactly is tracking their movements online.
Lightbeam – the second iteration of an experimental add-on called Collusion – has been developed in order to help people understand data tracking that occurs online, creating a real-time graph of all tracking cookies that are deposited by a browser as users move between sites.
Funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the tool is designed to differentiate between behavioural tracking cookies and non-behavioural ones, revealing both the first and third party companies that users interact with – ultimately analysing the relationships between party companies stored in a user’s online data.
Data is shown in three ways: a graph, clock and list, allowing users to understand movement and interaction in a number of different ways – from visualisation to an analysis of connections over a 24-hour period.
“It’s a stake in the ground in terms of letting people know the ways they are being tracked,” Mark Surman, Mozilla’s executive director told the Independent.
“At Mozilla, we believe everyone should be in control of their user data and privacy and we want people to make informed decisions about their Web experience.”
Malcolm Murdoch, director of digital data and performance at Mindshare UK, commented: “At Mindshare we are strongly in favour of greater transparency in the digital tracking world. Digital tracking is an essential part of the digital advertising marketplace, which funds the free content we all benefit from.
“Even if (as is most likely) there will be low uptake of the app, Mozilla’s move should raise pressure on the larger data collectors to provide more information to consumers about what they are doing with the data they collect.”
Data tracking has turned into a hot topic for consumers with the chairman of the Association of Online Publishers, John Barnes, saying earlier this month that a “consumer contract” should be produced to rebuild public trust in the wake of ongoing personal data controversies.
Speaking at the Guardian’s Changing Advertising Summit on October 10, Barnes discussed, alongside other industry leaders, the future of technology and advertising in light of the rise of big data and the new data economy.
“Publishers need to protect their users,” Barnes said, noting that the scale of personal data mining by tech companies and advertisers is being quickly exposed as wider scandals about the NSA and large tech firms dominate headlines around the world.
Apple’s former head of digital, Marketa Mach, has also suggested that a public sector body in the UK should be given a special “educational role” to improve personal data management.
“To what extent does the consumer know [advertisers are] collecting data about them?” Mach said, warning that there is a deep routed “transparency issue” that could impact how business is done in future.
