Those small buttons on Web sites that are designed to let you share what you've read with your social networks have an equally important function: They let the social networks track your travels on the Web, whether or not you click on them. Now, there are a growing number of start-ups offering tools that help consumers keep that kind of tracking at bay.
Social “widgets,†as they are called, have proliferated across the Web: a “like†button from Facebook or a cheery blue bird from Twitter. They act as eyes on the Web. They watch you as you read the day's news, say, or research health information, or shop for rain boots.
Facebook is especially ubiquitous. Academic researchers in France and Australia recently found that more than 20 percent of the 10,000 most popular Web sites have a Facebook widget. That widget allows the social networking giant to keep track of which Web sites they visit, whether or not the Internet user is logged on to Facebook at the t ime.
Twitter goes one step further. Its “tweet†button can be found on 7 percent of the top sites, the same study found. One of the tracking cookies set by Twitter allows it to track users who have never even visited Twitter.com, let alone have a Twitter account. “Twitter is still waiting for them,†Mohamed Ali Kaafar, of the National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control, known as Inria, in France.
The latest widget-scrubbing tool was released this week from PrivacyChoice, of Santa Cruz, Calif. It is a browser extension that monitors how tight your privacy settings are on Facebook and Google, including the option of disabling Facebook and Google Plus share buttons. In the first 24 hours, its president, Jim Brock, said, 50,000 used the tool, which the company calls PrivacyFix and offers for free.
“Our No. One job here is to educate, not to push people to particular choices,†said Mr. Brock. “I don't think your average user ha s any idea that those little buttons are listening posts.â€
Disconnect.Me, a Menlo Park, Calif., start-up, likewise, offers a browser extension for Google Chrome and lets users see just how many companies are tracking them on every Web site they visit. Those trackers include analytics companies, advertising networks and social networks.
Brian Kennish, a former Google engineer who started Disconnect.me, said it has drawn 850,000 active users. It is free.
Another company, called Ghostery, offers several browser extension to allow users to keep track of the trackers, including social network plug-ins. For instance, it found six trackers when I opened my Firefox browser to The New York Times's home page, including from Google and Facebook.
Social network widgets can help Web site publishers because they help their visitors share content with their friends online.
