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Porn Sites: Safer Than News Sites?

Not exactly, but if you're concerned about having your activity tracked online, you can do worse than porn sites.

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If you're worried about being tracked online, porn sites should be the least of your concerns.

In January, Princeton University analyzed the top 1 million websites on the Internet and made over 90 million page requests to determine which type of site is most likely to track your online behavior. The university found that news sites were most likely to feature trackers, followed by arts and sports sites. On average, nearly 50 tracking and non-tracking third-party items installed on your local machine, according to Princeton. The average site has approximately 25.

"Sites on the high end of the spectrum are largely those which provide editorial content," Princeton wrote in its study review. "Since many of these sites provide articles for free, and lack an external funding source, they are pressured to monetize page views with significantly more advertising."

In fact, Princeton found that advertising was one of the chief contributors to trackers, with trackers from Google's DoubleClick and others living behind the curtain on news sites. Those sites also used a healthy helping of analytics tools.

Porn, though, turned out to be far less onerous when it comes to tracking. The average porn site, in fact, had fewer than 10 tracker and non-tracker items on their sites.

Princeton, meanwhile, found that while trackers are everywhere, they're increasingly coming from major companies, like Google and Facebook. "All of the top 5 third parties, as well as 12 of the top 20, are Google-owned domains," the researchers wrote. "In fact, Google, Facebook, and Twitter are the only third-party entities present on more than 10 percent of sites."

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So, what can be done to stop this behavior? Unfortunately, Princeton couldn't find a single tool that would stop all tracking. However, the researchers did say that Firefox's third-party cookie blocking is "very effective," and only 237 sites were smart enough to get around its defenses. Another tool, named Ghostery, was also useful in blocking trackers.

Still, the message is clear: you're being tracked. It just so happens porn sites don't care nearly as much as one might think about what you're doing.

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About Don Reisinger

Don Reisinger is a longtime freelance technology journalist and product reviewer. He covers everything from Apple to gaming to start-ups. You can follow him on Twitter @donreisinger.

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