100 OCTOBER 2019|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE 380
O
ne of the most annoying things
about using the internetisthe way
that adverts will followyou around.
Youknowthe type: youlook at adrill to buy
on awebsite, then forweeksafter,you’re
shown the advert forthat drill, regardless
of whether youboughtitornot.This kind of
targeted advertising is largely performed
by tracking youusing cookies.
When youlook at aproduct on ashop
website, that information is saved by an ad
network. Next time youopen another site,
the same ad network canshowyou an
advert forthe product that youwerejust
looking at. It’sthis type of tracking ad that
follows youaround the internet. Stopping
this kind of tracking requires amulti-level
approach, which we’ll coverhere.
Dealingwithcookies
Cookies areused by pretty much all
websites. Theycan hold certain information
about you, in order to help the sitefunction
properly.For example, if youlog into auser
account, acookie canbeused to say that
you’relogged in. Shops canalso use cookies
to track what you’velooked at, giving youa
prompttobuy when youreturn.
Then thereare third-party cookies,
which aredropped on your machine via
other services, such as ad networks. These
arethe ones that areused to personalise
adverts and followyou around the web.
ThankstoEUlaw,when youvisit a
websitefor the first time, youshould geta
pop-up asking youifyou want to accept
the cookies that asitehas. Most sites will
just giveyou an ‘approve all’ option, which
most of us will click. However,look foran
option to choose your cookies in more
detail. When youdo, you’ll find that you
canselect the individual cookies that you
do and don’t want.
Be careful, however.Turn offadcookies,
forexample, and youmay think that you’re
safefromadvertising, but you’renot.This
won’tpreventawebsiteshowing youads,
but it prevents some forms of tracking that
areuseful to the owners, such as which ads
were shown, if youclicked on them, how
oftenthe ads were shown and more.
Therewill usually be another cookie for
personalisation or similar,which is the one
that youwanttostopads tracking you
around the internet. Turn these offfor a
siteand youshouldn’t see tracking ads or
allowasitetotrack what you’redoing.
Other cookie options include local
cookies, such as ones fortracking your login;
disable these carefully,otherwise youmay
find that the websitedoesn’t work properly.
This sounds great in theory,but the
reality is abit of anightmare. First, who
wantstohavetopick the options forevery
websitethat theyvisit? It’sthis levelof
annoyancethat causes most of us to just
click the accept all button. Second, when
yougoback to the websiteonadifferent
deviceorafter the cookies haveexpired,
you’ll getthe same message again and
will havetomakethe
same selections again.
In short, it’sniceto
havethe choice, but
the reality is that unless
you’revery diligent, you’ll
still be tracked.
Optingout
The big ad networksare
built responsibly and let
youopt out of tracking
networks. The settings
that youapply are
stored in acookie in your
browser,soyou haveto
optout from each device
and browser that youuse.
If tracking adverts come
back, youmay need to
reapply the settings.
The easiest waytoopt out of ad
networksistovisit the Network Advertising
Initiative(NAI) and use its free opt-out tool
(optout.networkadvertising.org). The NAI is
an industry body forthe online advertising
industry and its opt-out tool signs youout
of ‘interest-based’ (tracking) adverts for
all of its members. At the time of writing,
that was86members.
The tool will run and showyou alist of all
ad networks. Just click Select All to check
them all and then use the button at the
bottom of the page to submit your
preferences. You’ll be removedfromall
ad networksone at atime.
ADTRACKING
Fedupofadverts followingyouaround the web?
Here’s howtoblock and stop them
LEFT:Yo ucan usually
choose which cookies you
want to accept in detail
ABOVE:Yo ucan use the free NAI tool to optout of manyadnetworksinone go
