
Web tracking is the process of collecting information about users’ actions on the Internet, which is used by large companies to analyze behavior, advertise and personalize content. Real-life examples from companies such as Google and Facebook show how these platforms use web trackers to create user profiles to improve advertising performance. However, this raises serious privacy concerns.
Web tracking is the collection, storage and analysis of information about user behavior on the Internet. This data may include demographic information, sites visited, length of time spent on pages, and interactions with content such as clicks, scrolls, or mouse movements, enabling the creation of heat maps. The main objective of web tracking is to gain a deeper understanding of user actions and preferences, which enables companies to personalize content, increase engagement, show targeted advertising and evaluate the effectiveness of web resources.
Tracking systems can be divided into several categories depending on the methods and technologies used.
Cookies: Cookies are small text files that a web browser stores on a user’s device, and they contain information about a visit to a website, such as login details, settings or tracking identifiers. Despite efforts to strengthen privacy protection on the Internet, in particular through the Google Privacy Sandbox initiative, Kaspersky Lab experts believe that third-party cookies will continue to be used for a long time. At the time of writing this report, Antonio Chavez, Vice President of the Privacy Sandbox Project, announced a change in plans to opt out of third-party cookies.
Web beacons: Web beacons, or tracking pixels, are invisible images (typically 1×1 pixel in size) that transmit information about a user through a request to a server. When viewing content, the web beacon sends data to the server, allowing companies to track the user’s interaction with the page without his active actions.
Social Media Tracking: Many websites include social media buttons to quickly share content. However, these buttons often contain tracking tools that allow social networks to collect data about a user’s activity even if they are not interacting with the network itself.
Web analytics: Services like Google Analytics collect a large amount of data about how users behave on websites. They analyze indicators such as the number of views, bounce rate, conversion rate and others, helping companies to evaluate the effectiveness of the site and understand the behavior of the audience.
Digital Fingerprinting: Digital fingerprinting is a method of collecting information about a user’s device and browser, including screen resolution, operating system, plug-ins, and browser language. Such a unique set of data creates a digital fingerprint that can be used to identify the user even without the use of cookies.
For this report, we used anonymized statistics collected between July 2023 and June 2024, including the use of the Do Not Track (DNT) function, which blocks the loading of tracking elements that monitor the actions of users on web resources. Only anonymous data provided voluntarily by users was taken into account in the compilation.
Many even experienced users often confuse the DNT feature with the incognito mode available in most popular browsers. Incognito mode only clears history, cookies and other data after closing windows, but does not protect against tracking while on sites. It doesn’t make you anonymous to ISPs, and it doesn’t protect against malware, ad trackers, or cryptominers.
During the year, the DNT function was activated 38,725,551,855 times. For nine regions and several countries, we compiled a list of the 25 tracking systems that DNT detected most often. The percentage data was based on the total number of blocks of these tracking systems.
Eight tracking systems were included in almost all TOP 25 regions considered by us. Four of them belong to Google. In addition to them, we will consider two more tracking systems owned by New Relic and Microsoft, which are very prominently presented in almost all regions. In addition, two more systems – Criteo and Facebook Custom Audiences * – were also included in the TOP 25 of all regions, but we have already talked about them in previous articles.
Google uses several tracking systems to collect and analyze data in the field of marketing and advertising. One of them is Google Display & Video 360, which manages advertising campaigns and tracks activity related to advertising (clicks, technical parameters of ads, etc.). In South Asia, this system accounted for 25.47% of DNT activations, in East Asia – 24.45%. The smallest indicator is in the CIS region — only 8.38%, which is dominated by local trackers, which will be discussed further.
Compared to other tracking systems from Google, the YouTube Analytics system has significantly increased its share in all regions of the world.
San Francisco-based New Relic makes its first appearance in our ranking of global giants. It specializes in web tracking to analyze performance and detect errors on websites and applications. The largest share of its trackers is recorded in Oceania — 15.79%, the smallest in the CIS — 1.96%.
Microsoft trackers collect data on user interaction with the corporation’s services and third-party sites to optimize work and detect errors. Although the total share of their tracking is small, Microsoft is present in all regional TOP 25 ratings. The highest rate is in Latin America — 3.38%, the lowest — in the CIS, where it is 0.68%. The tracking system Bing, which also belongs to Microsoft, is highlighted separately.
Bing is a full-fledged search engine. Bing trackers collect information about users’ search queries, location and preferences in order to serve relevant ads later – classic functionality for a search engine. It can be assumed that the share of the presence of the Bing tracking system in different regions indicates the popularity of the Bing search engine itself. A noticeable share among the TOP 25 Bing trackers is obtained in Africa – 8.46%, the smallest share in the CIS – 0.77%.
In Europe, Google’s tracking systems occupy the first two places in the TOP 25 ranking. Google Display & Video 360 has a share of 17.27%, and Google Analytics – 11.93%. Third place belongs to Amazon Technologies with 9.13%. It is followed by Criteo (6.80%), YouTube Analytics (5.65%), Bing (5.33%) and Google AdSense (5.23%).
In addition to the systems included in the ratings of other regions, the European list includes a unique company — Improve Digital from the Netherlands. Its trackers, which are engaged in advertising and marketing projects, complete the ranking with a share of 1.22%. In the following regions, we will see even more local systems that are not found in other parts of the world.
In Africa, Google trackers occupy the top three places in the ranking, with Google Display & Video 360 leading the way with a share of 19.03%. In almost all regions, Google Display & Video 360 leads the rankings of tracking systems, only in one case being inferior to another Google system. Google Analytics ranks second in Africa (12.94%), YouTube Analytics ranks third (10.25%). Next in the ranking are New Relic (8.55%), Bing (8.46%), Google AdSense (5.11%), Criteo (3.40%) and Xandr (3.17%) — Microsoft’s advertising system. There are no unique trackers in the African TOP 25 that are not found in other regions.
The top four tracking systems in the Middle East are owned by Google: Google Display & Video 360 (22.92%), Google Analytics (14.12%), YouTube Analytics (12.30%) and Google AdSense (6.91%). They are followed by Criteo (6.55%), New Relic (4.42%), Bing (2.66%) and Amazon Technologies (2.37%). Trackers of the Turkish advertising company Virgul.com took 19th place with a share of 1.42%, which are presented only in this region.
In the Middle East, Iran especially stands out, where many unique tracking systems are used that are not found in other regions. Despite the significant number of local trackers, Google is also in first place here, but with Google Analytics, which has a share of 35.78% – the highest figure for this system among all regions. Google Display & Video 360 was in third place with a share of 11.35%, and Microsoft Corporation’s trackers took second place (12.08%). The fourth in the rating was Yandex.Metrica (4.90%), which provides services for analysis and optimization of advertising, and the fifth – the Iranian company Yektan (4.52%), which also specializes in advertising services.
In addition to local systems, there are others in Iran that are found only here. For example, trackers Tradingview.com (1.84%), American Amplitude (1.46%), Heap (1.18%), which analyzes user behavior, and Webklipper Technologies (0.96%), which deals with Internet marketing .
The TOP 25 tracking systems most frequently detected in Latin America do not contain local companies. In the first place, as in most other regions, Google Display & Video 360 with a share of 20.13%, in the second place – Google Analytics with 14.89%, in the third place – YouTube Analytics with 8.89%. The TOP 25 is completed by the tracking system of PubMatic (1.08%), a company engaged in software for Internet advertising. She got into almost all TOP 25, but with a very small share.
Google Display & Video 360, with a share of 16.84%, occupies the first place in the TOP 25 ranking of North America by a large margin. The second place is taken by Amazon Technologies with 9.08%, which is in the top three only in three regions: Europe, North America and Japan. In the third place is Google Analytics with a share of 8.42%, which is the lowest indicator for this system among the considered regions. The fourth position is occupied by New Relic (7.62%).
A feature of the North American rating are two unique tracking systems that do not appear in other regions — The Trade Desk (1.79%) and Quantum Metric (1.76%), which specialize in digital analytics and advertising.
In Oceania, Google Display & Video 360 topped the list with 18.43%, followed by New Relic with 15.79%, the highest for this system among all regions. The third place belongs to Google Analytics (12.00%). Oracle Moat Measurement (2.10%), Chartbeat (1.11%) and Nielsen (1.03%) are also popular trackers in this region, which are not found in other regions.
Chartbeat collects and analyzes data for media companies to improve monetization, while Nielsen specializes in market measurement. Oracle Moat Measurement, an advertising division of Oracle, will cease to exist on September 30, 2024, so this system appears in our research, probably for the last time.
The first four positions in East Asia are occupied by Google tracking systems. Google Display & Video 360 ranks first with a share of 24.45%, followed by Google Analytics with 13.83%, followed by YouTube Analytics with 11.66% and Google AdSense with 6.61%. Unlike other regions, the tracking system of the largest Chinese IT company Baidu entered the TOP 25 of East Asia with a share of 1.87%.
There are countries in the region that should be considered separately, since not only global tracking systems, but also local players got into them.
In addition to global companies, whose tracking services we have seen in all corners of the world, there are trackers in Japan that are popular only in this country. Quite often used web portal Yahoo! Japan, whose trackers account for 4.70%. And the share of Yahoo’s digital advertising division, Yahoo Advertising, is 2.35%.
In the Japanese TOP 25, local Japanese tracking systems are quite widely represented, such as Geniee with a share of 2.77%, Adsp from the Japanese company SMN Corporation with a share of 1.35%, MicroAd (1.18%), Supership (1.05%) and LINE Corporation (1.04%). The total share of Japanese companies in the TOP 25 tracking systems is 12.08%.
South Korea’s TOP 25 is distinguished by the presence of local trackers that are not available in other regions. For example, the trackers of the popular NAVER platform are in fifth place with a share of 7.75%. Another big Korean Internet giant, Kakao, is represented in two positions: Kakao trackers are in ninth place with a share of 1.83%, while trackers from the web portal Daum (owned by Kakao Corporation) took 1.17% and ended up in the lower positions of the ranking .
Google is the undisputed leader in the collection and analysis of user data worldwide. However, in some regions, such as South Korea and Japan, where local Internet services are developed, local trackers can not only enter the TOP 25, but also surpass global players. This shows that data collection is not limited to large companies, but extends to many other market participants, increasing the risk of leaks. On the other hand, the main share of tracking is still controlled by large IT corporations, which strive to protect the data of their users. To minimize the risk of unwanted data collection, we recommend activating the Do Not Track (DNT) plugin.