creep fest

I realize this might be something that goes against my blog mantra, but I find it interesting/informative and thought I'd share. By now I think we're all aware that little BIG spiders/bots/companies track our every move on the internets. They collect data on where we browse, how often we're there, etc etc CREEPY. I'm not going to get in to the techy mumbo jumbo because frankly, I don't really understand it. I still can't figure out how my TV gets Cam, Gloria, Phil and the rest of the Modern Family crew in my living room every Wednesday.

Yesterday I discovered a nifty little gadget (they, the techy people, call these "add-ons") called Collusion. Disconnect, Inc. has made it their business to keep what you do on the web your business, to a certain extent.

One of the most popular add-ons allows you to "disconnect" from Google, Twitter and Facebook so their bots aren't stalking you all over the place when you're not even logged in to those sites. You can still get on FB like normal, they just won't receive notifications when you visit one of their over one million connected sites that can push your info to third parties.

I haven't downloaded Disconnect just yet, but I did install Collusion, which shows a map of all the websites currently tracking you. Get ready for a creep fest. I went to 3 websites (just 3!) after installing Collusion, and here's what my map looked like:

should we sign up for the Witness Protection Program????

So all these little guys have a snippet of my personal information and will continue following me until they decide not to anymore. There's nothing I can do about it, except install the Disconnect gadgets which will help a bit.

Just for full disclosure, the three websites I visited were Yahoo! Finance, Gmail, and this cute blog post sent from a friend. I don't think I want to know what happens when I get to AmEx, eBay or J. Crew.

Pretty freaky, huh?