Quote: (10-02-2014 07:04 PM)frenchie Wrote:
Tracking cookies. It doesn't take a lot of effort to get that information especially if they gave it for another website.
You'd be terrified if you knew how much information is passed around about you from 3rd party cookies.
Example: you fill out a form on a site for a credit card, house, car, hell, just registering for a website. This stuff gets saved (income level, gender, sometimes ethnic background, etc). That company stores it in their "DMP" and drops a 3rd party cookie on your computer. You visit another site that is affiliated with the same DMP, it reads the 3rd party cookie, makes a phone home, now that website has all that information about you.
Also: from your IP address, they can roughly determine your zip code, city, state, county, country. Your user agent tells them your O/S, browser, version, and device if mobile or tablet. A hash of your plugins on your browser plus your user agent plus installed fonts can almost uniquely identity you from any other user in the world.
Next time you look at a product on Amazon, don't buy it, and then it magically shows up in the sidebar on some affiliate website: you'll know how it got there.