Collusion 1/12/15

Collusion

Is tracking a good or bad thing?

An example of who may be tracking you as you read this.

     A browser-application called Collusion shows what is really following us on the internet. It shows the sheer number of sites tracking you and your data. Many of these sites may not be bad, but there are some. The pros of having sites tracking us may be shopping. If you are looking for a new backpack, the ads you may be seeing may now be of backpacks. While this may occasionally help you, it could be bothersome. Off of my personal experience, I ended up buying a bag off a site and still I see ads from the same exact site. You can see in the picture above what might be the number of people tracking you after only a day of being online. As for my digital image, I mostly play games online and all of the things that are tracking me are things that connect my computer data to the web. It really doesn't bother me but if I ever do get a site that gets fishy I may investigate but normally its nothing to worry about.

As for the speaker on TED Talks, his opinion seemed a little more swayed to why it is bad. He made it seem as all the tracking but some was bad but I disagree. It doesn't ever hurt to have some website tracking you. I think it will help other sites bouncing information off others and creating better results for yourself. But in reality even if some website isn't tracking you it really doesn't matter. If someone really does want to attack your computer, they will find a way without tracking you.