I think people should be aware that scripts like this are normal on websites. It gets more complex as if the website is a good actor then they can be perfectly fine.
What's a lot worse and what people don't realise what's happening is when companies can have their own little NSA analysing data to take various actions. It's one thing when a site can see everything you do on their site.
It's another when someone can see what you do or who your are on all sites. Services such as advertising can have their scripts embedded on huge numbers of sites and when major companies secretly work together then for any given user they're often able to provider that user's almost full browsing history.
The data often ends up sufficient to be able to unmask users and ends up being NSA level. Companies like reddit behind the scenes in secret can work with for example advertising providers to pull huge amounts of data on any user they like. Unmask them and sneak that out to the press for example.
I think people should be aware that scripts like this are normal on websites. It gets more complex as if the website is a good actor then they can be perfectly fine.
What's a lot worse and what people don't realise what's happening is when companies can have their own little NSA analysing data to take various actions. It's one thing when a site can see everything you do on their site.
It's another when someone can see what you do or who your are on all sites. Services such as advertising can have their scripts embedded on huge numbers of sites and when major companies secretly work together then for any given user they're often able to provider that user's almost full browsing history.
The data often ends up sufficient to be able to unmask users and ends up being NSA level. Companies like reddit behind the scenes in secret can work with for example advertising providers to pull huge amounts of data on any user they like. Unmask them and sneak that out to the press for example.