canvas fingerprinting

Internet users looking to better guard their online privacy are probably aware of a new tracking trick certain sites are experimenting with in order to offer better targeted ads even to those people who block other tracking measures. Called canvas fingerprinting, the new tool tells your browser to create a unique fingerprint for your computer, by retrieving certain details about how the browser is rendering text on your system. The fingerprint then can be used to track users across websites, and it looks like at least 5,619 website have used the technology during May 1-5, 2014, according to researches that looked into how canvas fingerprinting works. More →

Internet users who are actively trying to make sure their online activity isn’t tracked by websites or government agencies should know there’s an even creepier tracking tool out there used by a variety of websites, “from WhiteHouse.gov to YouPorn,” as ProPublica puts it, that’s almost impossible to block. More →