The number of trackers for collecting data about Internet users has grown by almost 20%

Over the year, the number of web trackers that collect information about users on websites increased by 17.5% – from 40 billion at the end of June 2022 to 47 billion at the end of the first half of 2023. At the same time, at the end of June 2021, there were only 21 billion such trackers. These statistics are provided by cybersecurity experts from MTS Red, who analyzed the activity on the Internet of 80 million subscribers of the operator. The “explosive” growth in the number of trackers is confirmed by Aleksey Semenychev, head of expertise and analytics at the Garda group of companies.

We are talking about programs that are embedded in the code of Internet sites to collect information about user actions. Trackers are automatically activated when a user enters a site and may collect information such as email addresses, login credentials, payment details, search preferences, length of time users spend on websites, location data, type of device used, applications downloaded etc. The main purpose of web tracking is to monetize the collected information – targeted advertising, taking into account the interests of users, optimizing the site for the preferences of visitors, etc.