No Place To Hide

The EFF yestoday released a paper on how you are tracked by Big Data, with a focus on third-party trackers, appropriately timed for "Cyber Monday." Here's the overview:

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Part 1 breaks down "identifiers," or the pieces of information that trackers use to keep track of who is who on the web, on mobile devices, and in the physical world. Identifiers let trackers link behavioral data to real people. Part 2 describes the techniques that companies use to collect those identifiers and other information. It also explores how the biggest trackers convince other businesses to help them build surveillance networks. Part 3 goes into more detail about how and why disparate actors share information with each other. Not every tracker engages in every kind of tracking. Instead, a fragmented web of companies collect data in different contexts, then share or sell it in order to achieve specific goals. Finally, Part 4 lays out actions consumers and policy makers can take to fight back. To start, consumers can change their tools and behaviors to block tracking on their devices. Policy makers must adopt comprehensive privacy laws to rein in third-party tracking.