Ghostery

About
Ghostery is a privacy related browser extension created and owned by Ghostery, Inc. Although, on February 15, 2017 Ghostery has been Acquired by Cliqz. Cliqz is a German company owned by Mozilla and Hubert Burda Media that builds ground-breaking browser technologies to make the internet more private and easier to use.[1] Ghostery detects and blocks tracking technologies. This provides for faster page loading, and protection of your data. It’ll also show you what it’s blocked, so you can see whether the items it’s blocked are harmless or intrusive. It is among the most popular browser extensions for privacy protection. In 2014, Edward Snowden suggested consumers use Ghostery along with other tools to protect their online privacy. [2]

How it Works: [3]
Today's websites use trackers to provide engaging interconnected user experiences. Trackers are snippets of code that send and receive information about you to other companies. Trackers use this informations to deliver advertisements, analyze your behavior, connect social media, and more. Often, these trackers slow down a website, make it cluttered, or your data less private. Ghostery reveals the trackers on each website and empowers you to control the ones you don’t want for a cleaner, faster, and safer browsing experience.

Exactly what does Ghostery Collect? [4]

 * The tracker identified by Ghostery
 * The page where the tracker was found
 * The protocol of the page where the tracker was found
 * The blocking state of the tracker
 * The domains identified as serving trackers
 * The time it takes for the page and the tracker to load
 * The tracker's position on the page
 * The browser in which ghostery has been installed
 * Web Server log information - IP address and HTTP

Does Ghostery Help Advertisers?
Some journalists have claimed that Ghostery sells user data to advertisers to better target their advertisements. [5] Although, Ghostery Inc. claims that they do not collect any information that could be used to identify users information or target ads specifically at individual users. Ghostery Inc. made their code open source in 2010 to support their claim [6]. Since then Ghostery is no longer open source and you can not review their code.

Related Topics: Data Tracking | Privacy | History | Personal Experiences

Resources
[1] "CLIQZ and Ghostery join forces to defend your privacy". CLIQZ. 2017-02-15. Retrieved March 28, 2017.

[2] Storm, D. (2014, March 10). Snowden at SXSW: We need better encryption to save us from the surveillance state. Retrieved March 28, 2017, from http://www.computerworld.com/article/2475978/encryption/snowden-at-sxsw--we-need-better-encryption-to-save-us-from-the-surveillance-state.html

[3] Ghostery Makes the Web Cleaner, Faster and Safer! (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2017, from https://www.ghostery.com/

[4] Exactly what data does Ghostery Collect? (n.d.) Retrieved March 28, 2017, from https://web.archive.org/web/20151222173039/https://www.ghostery.com/support/faq/ghostery-add-on/exactly-what-data-does-ghostery-collect/

[5] Henry, A. (2013, June 19). Ad-Blocker Ghostery Actually Helps Advertisers, If You "Support" It. Retrieved March 28, 2017, from http://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actually-sells-data-to-a-514417864

[6] J. (2010, December 30). Jonpierce/ghostery. Retrieved March 28, 2017, from https://github.com/jonpierce/ghostery