New scientific research reveals the scope of user tracking on adult sites.
A research team of Elena Maris from Microsoft, Timothy Libert from Carnegie Melon University and Jennifer Henrichsen from the University of Pennsylvania announced in a scientific article published this week that as many as 93% of adult websites provide browsing data to third parties such as online advertisers or web analytics service providers. And the information provided is much more detailed than one might think. In addition, scientists warn that incognito mode is no protection against the practices of analytical companies.
The list of companies that receive information about pornographic browsing habits and users’ sexual preferences includes companies such as Google, Oracle, Facebook, Cloudflare, but also advertisers who are active only in the adult industry.
Methodology
To select pornography sites for their study, the research team scanned a list of about a million pages in search of those with the word ‘porn’ c in the title or in the metadata.
In this way, they selected 22 484 websites and then analyzed their source code in search of a privacy policy. In turn, in the content of the privacy policy, researchers looked for phrases that could indicate that the website provides user data to third parties and whether it agrees with their source code.
“We were able to separate the privacy policy for 3,856 pages, which is 17% of the total. Only 11% of third parties that use trackers on adult sites were listed in the privacy policy of the site, which means that there are many activities related to tracking users who are not disclosed to them . “
But while some sites at least had any privacy policy written down, others didn’t even spawn something like that , instead offering a wide range of trackers in the source code of the site or the use of technology that collects data on user behavior.
You won’t guess who’s watching you
Researchers also looked at the companies behind the tracking domains. In total , 230 companies were identified that tracked users , but most of the data goes to several major players. According to the research team, Google-related scripts were found at 74% of 22 484 adult pages, followed by exoClick at 40%, Oracle at 24%, JuicyAds at 11%, and even Facebook (10%) who also had a clear view in what users do on these pages.
The survey also shows that as many as 79% of adult sites leave at least 9 cookies behind them . Only 17% encrypts their traffic and actually protects users’ privacy.
However, the most terrible thing about the survey is that the tracking scripts save the URL of the page the user is visiting. This is normal behavior for any analytics provider, but the URL structure of some adult sites creates a problem because it reveals the nature of the material the user is viewing . Any external observer analyzing these URLs can quickly find out about sexual preferences or habits associated with viewing pornography, then use this information, inter alia, for advertising. Almost 45% of adult sites use URL structures that can be used to reveal users’ sexual preferences, according to the survey.
It is interesting that most pornography sites on the internet come from Europe . Cultural and commercial norms in the United States are the reason for frequent bans and strong regulations regarding the hosting of pornography. Because of this, US companies rarely deal with adult content. One of these companies is of course Google. As researchers from Pennsylvania put it:
“Google does not host pornography so as not to offend users, but there is no reluctance to observe the consumption of pornography by the same users without their knowledge.”
How to protect yourself against this?
Incognito mode only suspends saving of browsing data on our machine, but does not give us any protection against trackers or profiling . The use of addblockers is a potential solution , although this does not guarantee 100% private browsing. The best way to protect yourself is to carefully choose pages that have a detailed privacy policy that clearly indicates that they do not share information with third parties.
