November 17, 2024, 12:01 pm | Read time: 3 minutes
If you’re on an adult site, you probably don’t necessarily want others to know about it. What many people don’t know, however, is that even in incognito mode, large tech companies track everything very closely.
Sites such as Xhamster and Pornhub are among the most visited internet domains in Germany. Many people try to hide their identity by using incognito mode in their browsers. However, this has no protective effect in this context. There has even been a lawsuit against Google in the USA seeking 5 billion dollars in damages. Precisely because the Chrome browser does not make people invisible, it is frighteningly easy for advertising companies to find out people’s identities and the videos they watch. That’s how much you are spied on when you visit adult sites if you agree to cookies.
Overview
How visitors to adult sites are spied on
Most adult entertainment and internet sites can create an individual digital fingerprint of the user. This process is called “fingerprinting.” It allows advertising companies to compare a person’s visits to different sites and thus create profiles for customized advertising.
With this individual information and the IP address assigned to each Internet user, very precise identification is possible. Therefore, your surfing behavior and the titles of the videos you watch could become public sooner or later and could potentially be linked to your name.
The sites track which search queries you have made or which films you have watched using tracking tools such as Google Analytics, as well as the share buttons for Facebook, Twitter, or other third-party networks.
Hackers are also interested
The magazine”Vice carried out the test and read out the transmission data. The erotic site “Xnxx” sends data to Google, to the Oracle subsidiary and analysis company “Addthis,” and to an advertising network called “Pornvertising” – even when you are surfing in private mode. The risk of your erotic preferences being exposed by amateur hackers is increasing as the data spreads across various platforms. Attackers could sell it or use it to blackmail users.
Advertisers especially benefit from having precise information about their target audience. In the case of the publication of surfing histories, this may simply be embarrassing for us in Germany. However, in some countries, people with certain sexual preferences are repressed and persecuted.
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What can I do about tracking?
Complete anonymity is impossible on the Internet. However, you can obscure your online activity to some extent, for instance, by using VPN services. This allows users to surf the net with an IP address other than their own. Although this cannot completely protect you from being tracked, it at least makes it more difficult to create a digital footprint.
In general, it is also advisable to use an anti-tracking browser such as “DuckDuckGo,” which automatically prevents almost all tracking attempts.
You should also object to optional cookies. This can activate only the necessary cookies when you are asked for consent the first time you visit the site (or again after 30 days). This might involve some extra clicks on numerous pages, but the effort is worthwhile to protect your privacy.