Annoying cookies seem to go away. But don’t rejoice too soon because there are better ways of spying.
Plenty of people hate
cookies
These are small pieces of code left on our machines by websites.
Companies and websites can track you throughout the Internet with their help.
Of course, browsers allow us to remove cookies, but we often
forget to sweep these crumbs that follow us through the entire Internet. There
have been efforts to persuade the sites not to keep track of us (using the Do
Not Track) but it is a tiny step.
The technology of
tracking things with cookies is in the past
Internet giants are developing new ways of tracking your
online actions, and these systems are way more sophisticated than good old
cookies. People who value their privacy will have to deal with as many as three
new tracking technologies.
Google
Google is promoting AdID - anonymous identifier for online advertising.
The company is currently refraining from any specific comment on this matter,
but it seems that every user of Google services will be assigned a unique ID.
Authors from Google believe that these technological
improvements can increase your safety while ensuring economic viability.
Facebook
Facebook uses its own system of tracking, not associated
with any other ad network. With it help, Facebook may know that you have
visited a specific website, which has a Like button. And we all know that there
are very few sites without these buttons now. After that, the company can match
the information you provided with the data received from Acxiom, and draw a
complete and accurate picture of your interests.
Facebook is also testing technologies that can record data on
how long a user moves his cursor over a particular part of the website, or what
news feeds are displayed on the smart phone display in a certain moment.
This information is then being analyzed and provided to the
marketers to define what additional products or services they can offer you.
Microsoft
Microsoft is just going to replace the cookies with a unique
user ID. Ad IDs are already implemented in Windows 8.1 and in corresponding Windows
Store applications.
According to Microsoft, these IDs are being created for each
user and each device. All applications of an individual user on the device have
the same advertising ID. Literally, advertisers can now keep track not only of
all your Internet actions, but also track what applications you use, when and
how you use them. As a positive side, you
can easily disable this AD when installing Windows, or at any time later.
So, why Internet
giants need all this?
Firstly, each of the above new methods gives companies more information
about the user and provides greater control over data, what, in its turn,
allows to attract more advertisers to their ad networks.
Secondly, new technologies from Google and Microsoft allow
them to track you even if you are not using a web browser to access the
Internet. It is crucial to facilitate the monetization of mobile applications,
which often depends on the connection to the Internet but without the explicit
use of a web browser.
This happens, most
likely, because of your loading something that conceals relevant plug-in and a
redirect. Many free packages posted in the web
attract people with some free utilities. As you grab these, you pay with your
comfort, as a piece of adware comes along. A striking example of such a trap
would be VUZE, a common utility enabling file sharing. If you grab free
software and media, it is good to ensure they are free of impurities. 
