Protect Yourself From Meta’s Latest Attack on Privacy

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Researchers recently caught Meta using an egregious new tracking technique to spy on you. Exploiting a technical loophole, the company was able to have their apps snoop on users’ web browsing. This tracking technique stands out for its flagrant disregard of core security protections built into phones and browsers. The episode is yet another reason to distrust Meta, block web tracking, and end surveillance advertising. 

Fortunately, there are steps that you, your browser, and your government can take to fight online tracking. 

What Makes Meta’s New Tracking Technique So Problematic?

More than 10 years ago, Meta introduced a snippet of code called the “Meta pixel,” which has since been embedded on about 20% of the most trafficked websites. This pixel exists to spy on you, recording how visitors use a website and respond to ads, and siphoning potentially sensitive info like financial information from tax filing websites and medical information from hospital websites, all in service of the company’s creepy system of surveillance-based advertising. 

While these pixels are well-known, and can be blocked by tools like EFF’s Privacy Badger, researchers discovered another way these pixels were being used to track you. 

Even users who blocked or cleared cookies, hid their IP address with a VPN, or browsed in incognito mode could be identified

Meta’s tracking pixel was secretly communicating with Meta’s apps on Android devices. This violates a fundamental security feature (“sandboxing”) of mobile operating systems that prevents apps from communicating with each other. Meta got around this restriction by exploiting localhost, a feature meant for developer tes

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