A new technique is allowing major websites to monitor users’ online activity. Audio Fingerprinting has nothing to do with a device’s microphone, but instead relies on the way in which the audio signal of each machine is processed. A third-party tracker uses the technique to send low-frequency sounds to a user’s device. The company behind this technology says it can detect when users are listening to music or watching videos and then use that information to target ads at them. Another widely used method to track online users is fingerprinting technique based on the HTML Canvass API and WebRTC local IP discovery. This is providing a valuable new tool to a range of interested parties, including Google, marketing organisations and law enforcement. Researchers at Princeton University discovered that Google has, through a number of domains, tracked users on nearly 80% of all top one million domains using this and other tracking techniques.
A new technique is allowing major websites to monitor users’ online activity. Audio Fingerprinting has nothing to do with a device’s microphone, but instead relies on the way in which the audio signal of each machine is processed. A third-party tracker uses the technique to send low-frequency sounds to a user’s device. The company behind this technology says it can detect when users are listening to music or watching videos and then use that information to target ads at them. This is providing a valuable new tool to a range of interested parties, including Google, marketing organisations and law enforcement. Researchers at Princeton University discovered that Google has, through a number of domains, tracked users on nearly 80% of all top one million domains using this and other tracking techniques.