Anyone who is tempted to participate in the campaign #DeleteFacebook, after the personal data of millions of users have fallen into the hands of a political consulting firm is likely to be monitored by the social network, which tracks almost 30% of global web traffic.
And Google (GOOGL.O), in various forms, obscures the 64 percent of all Web-browsing all over the world, reveals a recent study by Cliqz (www.ghostery.com/lp/study) on 200.000 German users, using the anti-tracking product Ghostery.
Neither Facebook nor Google responded to the results of the study done by Cliqz
A larger study of Princeton University researchers' web trackers in 2016 yielded similar results, with Google Analytics and other Google trackers reaching the top five, followed by Facebook (FB.O).
Cliqz, mostly owned by the German publisher Hubert Burda Media and supported by Mozilla, creator of the Firefox browser, is one of several startups that prides itself on being able to protect personal data completely.
"We stop companies like this from spying on you," chief executive Marc Al-Hames told Reuters.
From private browsers like Cliqz, equipped with anti-trackers and blockers, companies try to protect users from intrusion. Traditional providers in Europe are also trying to differentiate themselves by placing the utmost attention on the privacy aspect.
"Whenever there is a scandal like this in US companies, our business increases," Ralph Dommermuth, founder and CEO of Germany United Internet (UTDI.DE), told Reuters. The company offers encrypted email services, hosted in Germany under strict privacy regulations, and does not sell user data.
United Internet and others have recently formed a “Login Alliance” that offers a unique and secure way, for their 50 million users, in compliance with the new European Union privacy rules which will come into effect in May.
This is in contrast to the unbridled use made in the past of Facebook data, where in order to access the various companies it was possible to enter with the personal data already registered on Facebook.
Privacy advocates have warned for years that Facebook's terms of use left data collection open.
Psychologist Aleksandr Kogan collected data on 50 million Facebook users by creating a personality quiz taken by a few hundred thousand people. By consenting to its terms, they allowed the app to collect information about Facebook "friends", without their knowledge or consent.
The American academic relayed that data to Cambridge Analytica, which applied data science and psychographic profiling to support Donald Trump's election campaign, violating Facebook's rules.
“It's the volcano that was about to erupt at some point - we didn't know when,” said Ben Williams, director of communications and operations at Adblock Plus, based in Germany.
AdBlock Plus has 100 millions of users looking for protection from ads like autoplay videos. It is not a privacy product as such, although users can change settings to increase security.
Most people do not care about normal search advertising, but are opposed to intrusive third-party ads, Williams said.
The Facebook information leak scandal shows that data should never be collected, said Cliqz's Al-Hames:
"We should all be outraged, but no one should be surprised, everyone who took that data will eventually lose it sooner or later."
Cliqz has an icon that shows how many private data point trackers are trying to log in when you visit a site.
Its anti-tracking function replaces private data with random information to get rid of it, while there is also an anti-phishing function to counter data theft.
Cliqz stores your browsing history on 'board', on desktop and smartphone, and uses it to customize your search.
Without providing direct access, it also allows businesses to use that information to target ads using their MyOffrz product in a way that complies with the new EU privacy rules.
“We may serve a targeted ad, but that doesn't mean there is information about you on our servers,” said Al-Hames.
Cliqz has around half a million active users, while Ghostery, the browser extension that controls which web servers a given page calls, has around 7 million users.