So, as a savvy internet user with a keen appreciation for the human form, you’ve been confidently swapping to incognito mode in Google Chrome whenever you feel the need to… um, explore your innermost imagination. Groinally, we mean.
And you’ve been quietly confident that your salty secrets have been safe, and you know what heartbreaking news is coming next.
Yes, it turns out that those companies which have lied to you about how secure your data is and whether or not they’re collecting and using it have been lying to you about the security of your data and collecting and using it. WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED???
A new study entitled Tracking sex: The implications of widespread sexual data leakage and tracking on porn websites is currently in pre-print, in which researchers from Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Pennsylvania looked at data tracking tools in porn sites and found there are loads of them, feeding data back to companies like Google, Facebook and Oracle.
And incognito mode stops that data being stored on your computer, it’s true… but not from these data trackers.
And because few porn sites are encrypted it means that other companies can presumably exploit site security to access said trackers themselves.
And why is this an issue? Let’s look at the study’s abstract:
“We identify three core implications of the quantitative results: 1) the unique/elevated risks of porn data leakage versus other types of data, 2) the particular risks/impact for vulnerable populations, and 3) the complications of providing consent for porn site users and the need for armative consent in these online sexual interactions.”
In other words: people can be outed, this can be devastating for particular groups of people depending on where they live, and this is being done without clear consent.
Honestly, people. VPNs. Get onto it.