Think you’re not being tracked online? Our browsing habits are captured and leaked by nine out of 10 major websites
Chances are, your internet browsing habits are well known among many companies – some of which you probably haven't even heard of.
New research published today in the International Journal of Communication shows 88 per cent of mainstream websites track your data and pass it on to third parties.
While the information they leak is “anonymous”, lead researcher Tim Libert, from the University of Pennsylvania said it could easily be analysed to work out who's who.
There's some suggestion that it's anonymous data, but when you have big data sets that can be combined with other big data sets, you can be identified pretty easily.
He and his colleagues based their findings on the Alexa list of the one million most-visited websites, and they found sites that pass on data do so to an average of nine other websites.
Read more: Your smartphone knows when you’re depressed
Google was found to be the website acquiring the largest amount of user data, receiving it from 80 per cent of the websites looked at. Facebook, Twitter and Amazon received data from 32 per cent, 18 per cent and 12 per cent of the sites.
Libert said while the tracking and leaking did not breach security rules, it enhanced the risk of a breach taking places.
If your data is being sent to several companies, that creates new potential points of failure where your data could be hacked or leaked.