[chilidog]

Originally posted on 10/26/2013:

Everything is tracked. Google Analytics is mainly for sbr's benefit to know their traffic. Of course, google uses this information as well. Piwik is a server-side analytics software package, also just for sbr to track their traffic. Adsense is by google, pure advertising - sbr makes $$ this way. Addthis is a social-sharing company. If you've ever seen those facebook like buttons on various websites all over this place, companies like AddThis are behind things like this. Everything is tracked, everything. If you're logged into google (gmail, youtube, google plus, etc) or yahoo or facebook, then every search you make, every site you visit is logged, and related advertising is shown to you. It's also stored for law enforcement reasons, in case you ever do anything wrong.

People think that if they use private or incognito mode that they'll be safe - nope. Sure, it won't track you through cookies or account logins, but there are other forms of tracking - for instance, your ip, flash, and a few other things. You're always tracked. Everything you search, every site you visit, every email you send/receive - it's all stored.

Google analytics
Google adsense
PiWik
AddThis

Is this bad? ChiliDog? JohN?

I don't know much about tracking, affiliates, etc... What are these companies collecting, just browsing habits? Or more?

MSNBC is the worst yet, 16 companies track on their website.