Anatomy of the Third-Party Web Tracking Ecosystem

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the global third-party web tracking ecosystem from a geographical perspective, revealing regional variations and cross-border tracking practices that impact data privacy and regulation enforcement.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive geographical analysis of third-party trackers across 29 countries, highlighting regional differences and cross-border tracking behaviors.

Findings

Significant geographical variation in third-party trackers.

Presence of region-specific and cross-border trackers.

Implications for data privacy regulation enforcement.

Abstract

The presence of third-party tracking on websites has become customary. However, our understanding of the third-party ecosystem is still very rudimentary. We examine third-party trackers from a geographical perspective, observing the third-party tracking ecosystem from 29 countries across the globe. When examining the data by region (North America, South America, Europe, East Asia, Middle East, and Oceania), we observe significant geographical variation between regions and countries within regions. We find trackers that focus on specific regions and countries, and some that are hosted in countries outside their expected target tracking domain. Given the differences in regulatory regimes between jurisdictions, we believe this analysis sheds light on the geographical properties of this ecosystem and on the problems that these may pose to our ability to track and manage the different data silos that now store personal data about us all.