I’m sure at some point I’ve complained about internet tracking. There’s no way I haven’t, but I can’t find the right article to link to at the moment. So instead, I’ll ramble on for a bit about the over-discussed and tired topic.
I did find this topic, wherein I discussed my router upgrade. Recently, the manufacturer pushed an update to it, and in this update I found some more robust traffic management and firewall tools. Naturally, I poked around, and discovered that I could control domain blocking with more refinement. On a whim–well, more than a whim really–I blocked Facebook and some other well-known web analytic and tracking domains in a custom rule that I then assigned to all my personal devices.
The result was even worse than I had suspected. There were all manner of things that were linking to Facebook. Even if I chose to ignore all Facebook prompts, applications and pages were still running their scripts in the background. Why?! The question, of course, is rhetorical.
One more incremental step in fighting for internet privacy.
–Simon