Private mode for porn is not private for everyone

A study shows that not even your porn searches are safe from big corporations. While we can’t be too surprised, it’s still annoying to learn that sites like Google and Facebook are able to detect the type of porn you’re into and may even use your likes to make profits.

These results – determined by a study conducted by Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pennsylvania – say that Facebook, Google and Oracle are secretly tracking your porn habits, even when you use the Incognito tab.

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The study used a tool called webXray on over 22,484 websites and found that 93% of them submitted their numbers to third-party websites. “Revelations about such data pose a particular threat to personal safety and autonomy in any society that polices gender and sexuality,” the study authors say.

Photo by Christin Hume via Unsplash

Not surprisingly, of the three companies studied, Google had the most influence with trackers on 74% of porn sites. Oracle had trackers on 24% of them and finally Facebook – a site that doesn’t allow nudity and porn on its services – had trackers on 10% of them. The study explains that these companies can do whatever they want with this data: sell it, infer your sexual preferences based on the type of URL you use, and use this information to build a more complete consumer profile of you. With all this information, these websites get a more complete picture of you and can better identify targeted advertising.

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“The fact that the mechanism for tracking adult websites, for example, is so similar to online commerce should be a major red flag. This isn’t about picking out a sweater and watching it follow you around the internet. This is so much more specific and deeply personal,” said one of the study’s lead authors in an interview with The New York Times.

It seems like we’re all just a few keyboard types away from sextortions and truly embarrassing sex scandals. At least we can find some peace knowing that we are all perverts and not alone.