Re:Apple will soon treat online web tracking the same as a s...
by luckylion on Sunday August 18, 2019 @02:55AM
(#20728682)
> None of that is at all "anonymized".
It sounds like many people now use anonymized whenever there's no obvious personal identifier (name, email, social security number etc) in the data. Never mind that a thorough profile doesn't need one to identify individuals.
TFA is a little incoherent, however.
> Publishers and companies rely heavily on online tracking — i.e. collecting (anonymized) data about a user’s activity on the web — to keep tabs on your every move as you hop from one site to the other. [emphasis added]
> While this is typically used for targeted advertising, the implications go beyond just serving relevant ads in that it allows marketers to create detailed dossiers about your interests — resulting in significant loss of privacy.
> This involves the use of cookies, tracking pixels, browser and device fingerprinting, and other adtech-based navigational tracking methods intended to amass browsing activities and build elaborate profiles of web users.
None of that is at all "anonymized".