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Website tracking activity

Can a website see/track what activity is taking place outside of the web-browser on my macbook, with firewall enabled?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.4

Posted on Jun 24, 2021 6:49 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 24, 2021 7:03 AM

Stevieblunder wrote:

Can a website see/track what activity is taking place outside of the web-browser on my macbook, with firewall enabled?


The firewall is not involved here. Firewall blocks incoming, not out going data.


You can assume yes, notoriously Google tracks everything.

Social media is also well know to scrape user data.


The court battles continue—"App Tracking Transparency

feature will require developers to receive a user's consent to track

their activity across apps and websites and access their device's random

advertising identifier."


There is only so much you can do.


Prevent cross-site tracking in Safari on Mac - Apple Support


Change Privacy preferences in Safari on Mac - Apple Support




https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/07/apple-criticized-for-inaction-over-app-tracking-transparency-workarounds

10 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 24, 2021 7:03 AM in response to Stevieblunder

Stevieblunder wrote:

Can a website see/track what activity is taking place outside of the web-browser on my macbook, with firewall enabled?


The firewall is not involved here. Firewall blocks incoming, not out going data.


You can assume yes, notoriously Google tracks everything.

Social media is also well know to scrape user data.


The court battles continue—"App Tracking Transparency

feature will require developers to receive a user's consent to track

their activity across apps and websites and access their device's random

advertising identifier."


There is only so much you can do.


Prevent cross-site tracking in Safari on Mac - Apple Support


Change Privacy preferences in Safari on Mac - Apple Support




https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/07/apple-criticized-for-inaction-over-app-tracking-transparency-workarounds

Jun 24, 2021 7:31 AM in response to Stevieblunder

Stevieblunder wrote:

having been specifically instructed by the website in question to "open only on chrome, with no add-ons installed" it's a fair assumption there's a plan to monitor what I'm doing offline while using this website. Very interesting (and disconcerting).


You can research this topic all day long—

Google data case to be heard in Supreme Court - BBC News


Jun 24, 2021 7:49 AM in response to sea116

This is my quandry. I must fill in a questionnaire for work online through a survey website. The company specifically told us to install chrome with no addons, "as the survey will only work on this broswer setup", but the cynic in me finds it strange that something "anonymised" cannot tell me if the survey (to be taken over multiple hours) can track/click-log/monitor what i do in a different browser window, or programme on my personal machine. I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any means, just becoming increasingly data security conscious following some close calls! In essence, I guess there has to be a difference between what the broswer knows/records, versus what the website does (although the website has a tiny disclaimer saying "personal data will be collected, processed, and saved according to arti.28 EU GDPR. Both the oragnisation and survey company are diligently following all technical and organisational measures for the secure and earmarked processing of your data")



Thank you all for your replies

Website tracking activity

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