Google and Facebook "third parties" dominate the web (FB, GOOG, GOOGL)
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A new report reveals the extent to which Google and Facebook dominate online tracking.
The report by researchers Steven Englehardt and Arvind Narayanan analyzed the presence of “third parties” on the one million most-visited websites, as determined by web analytics firm Alexa.
These third parties are typically hidden trackers – cookies, scripts, code – that are embedded into first-party websites (the websites a user visits directly) in order to identify visitors and track their browsing history. Targeted ads can then be served and measured through ad networks based on activity on the website.
Some of the highlights from the study, as it relates to advertisers and publishers, are as follows:
- Google is a leader in this space, followed by Facebook. Of the 81,000 third parties present on two websites or more, only 123 are present on more than 1% of surveyed sites, and only three – Google, Facebook, and Twitter – are present on more than 10% of surveyed sites. However, seven of the top 10 third parties are Google-owned domains, while Facebook owns the remaining three. Google and Facebook’s third-party footprint over the web directly correlates to their dominance in online advertising.
- Websites which provide editorial content have the most trackers. News websites had the most trackers, followed by arts, sports, and home categories. These properties largely lack revenue sources other than advertising, and third-party trackers allow these websites to derive the maximum revenue from each page view. In contrast, websites of organizations with funding sources outside of the web – such as the government, research institutions and universities, and non-profits – had the lowest level of trackers.
- Third parties impede HTTPS adoption. HTTPS is an encrypted version of the HTTP set of standards, or web protocol, that allows files and data to be transferred online. HTTPS protects users from being tracked, and websites from having malware inserted into their pages. The study found that over a quarter of HTTP-default websites have embedded third-party resources that do not support HTTPS, meaning these websites would not be able to upgrade to HTTPS without displaying content errors to their users. More specifically, 92% of these websites contain content that would be blocked if they upgraded to HTTPS.
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