How Many Trackers Do Websites Have?

Many Internet users have a certain notion of what tracking is. Trackers, evil pieces of code, follow you wherever you go, take note of your selections, build patterns of your actions and profile you.

Have you ever tried to realize the scale of it? If you’re thinking of counting your most used websites and apps on your ten fingers and feel relatively “low profile,” you’re going to be disappointed. Many people believe tracking works like this: One website has one tracker, and if you visit several websites, that’s several trackers collecting your behavior data.

Unfortunately, that’s not reality. Websites have tens of trackers per page, and they also have third-, fourth- and fifth-party trackers, too (that’s how many parties agreed on sharing the data about you when you come to that website).

We’ve made the following infographic using the data from whotracks.me. It might seem odd that the websites with the most trackers are not the most famous ones. But it also may mean that the most popular websites have more advanced tracking systems in place, and they might be more exclusive regarding the tracking parties involved.

It’s a bit burdening to understand what a simple visit to a website means for your privacy, but we think it’s worth knowing.