ATS Being Heavily Watched

Ghostery sees the invisible web - tags, web bugs, pixels and beacons. Ghostery tracks the trackers and gives you a roll-call of the ad networks, behavioral data providers, web publishers, and other companies interested in your activity.

After showing you who's tracking you, Ghostery also gives you a chance to learn more about each company it identifies. How they describe themselves, a link to their privacy policies, and a sampling of pages where we've found them are just a click away.

Ghostery allows you to block scripts from companies that you don't trust, delete local shared objects, and even block images and iframes. Ghostery puts your web privacy back in your hands.

Originally posted by animalz
for people who dont understand, feel free to download Ghostery from:
www.ghostery.com...

so what does it do? here is some basic info from the website:


DETECT

Ghostery sees the invisible web - tags, web bugs, pixels and beacons. Ghostery tracks the trackers and gives you a roll-call of the ad networks, behavioral data providers, web publishers, and other companies interested in your activity.

LEARN

After showing you who's tracking you, Ghostery also gives you a chance to learn more about each company it identifies. How they describe themselves, a link to their privacy policies, and a sampling of pages where we've found them are just a click away.

CONTROL

Ghostery allows you to block scripts from companies that you don't trust, delete local shared objects, and even block images and iframes. Ghostery puts your web privacy back in your hands.

very useful little thingy

btw I didnt say it was CIA who was watching, but I firmly every serious organisation/company has an access to data from those analytics..

‘Spontaneous’ Ads Never Appear by Chance

Companies Peek to Know what Internetter is Looking for

By Renske Baars

AMSTERDAM – It happens more and more. Companies peeking sneakily over the shoulder of the internet user. That way they get valuable information about the shopping behaviour and profile of the visitors. Ghostery.com turns the tables. With their application every internetter can see exactly who’s doing the peeping.

When you search via google.nl about, say, a tummy tuck you suddenly get some attention from other advertisers. An ad about ‘A flat stomach in twelve weeks’ appears on many a site that you visit afterwards. Or when on Facebook, you detect offers for cosmetic clinics and fat burning pills.

A coincidence? Certainly not. Peeking along with internet users is a smart marketing technique, say the creators of Ghostery.com. That’s why they have started an offensive to counter this online marketing. They want ‘all piggy backers’ to be shown clearly on the sites and created an application for that purpose, that can be downloaded on their website. Abram Wagenaar of PC Magazine from Haarlem explains the mechanism: “Invisible images from other companies are put on many websites, sometimes no larger than one pixel. They also get the IP address of the visitor without you being aware of that yourself.”

Wagenaar: “It’s a bit like the Bonus Card from Albert Heijn. All your purchaces are being registered and all that information creates a profile of the customer. That profile, a family with two little children or - for instance - a single male with a preference for sushi, is being targeted with ads. It works the same way on the internet.”

Roy Samsom, internet security expert with Cap Gemini, thinks that internet companies are earning loads of money with internet espionage. “Many companies want to know exactly where a consumer is looking for. Since they pay dearly for it.” Blocking The visitor is not aware of such practices. Many of them not even notice that the hundreds of ads that pass then by are specially designed for them. ICT expert Samson recommends downloading a program like Ghostery. “They turn the tables. Internet users can now see who is watching them. It allows them to block these companies. Because it also affects your privacy.”