Ghostery is a free privacy browser extension for Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer

Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...

, Opera

Opera (web browser)

Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent,...

, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari

Safari (web browser)

Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...

, and Google Chrome

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...

 that enables its users to easily detect and control tags, web bugs, pixels, and beacons that have the potential to collect data on their browsing habits. Ghostery also has a privacy team that creates profiles of page elements and companies for educational purposes.

Blocking

Ghostery blocks HTTP requests according to their source address in two ways: Cookie Blocking and Cookie Protection, which is experimental. When Cookie Protection is enabled, if a cookie is selected from Ghostery's list, it is not accessible to anyone but the user and thus unable to be read when called upon.

In Internet Explorer, Ghostery can detect elements that are not in the page source, such as redirects and iframe contents, but these are detected after execution and cannot be blocked.

Reporting

Ghostery for Firefox uses a separate engine from its "control" engine to scan the DOM of the webpages users visit and report the contents in a purple overlay inside the page DOM. They have been criticised for not using standard Firefox chrome panels, as the overlay can easily be spoofed by a website. Ghostery for Chrome, Safari, and IE use the same engine for both controlling and reporting page elements.

History and Use

Originally developed by David Cancel, Ghostery was acquired by the privacy technology company Evidon (previously named The Better Advertising Project) in January of 2010. Currently, through the use of a reporting function named "GhostRank" that users can opt into, Ghostery provides reports to Evidon about advertisers and data collectors, which Evidon then provides to advertising industry groups including the Better Business Bureau

Better Business Bureau

The Better Business Bureau , founded in 1912, is a corporation consisting of several private business franchises of local BBB organizations based in the United States and Canada, which work through their parent corporation, the Council of Better Business Bureaus .The Better Business Bureau, through...

 (BBB) and the Direct Marketing Association, parts of the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA). These agencies then use those reports to monitor how Online Behavioral Advertisers operate and, when needed, refer them to the Federal Trade Commission

Federal Trade Commission

The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...

.

External links

• Ghostery.com (Official website)
• Ghostery on Mozilla Add-ons (Mozilla Foundation and/or Mozilla Corporation)
• Digital Advertising Alliance (Official website)
• CNET Review
• Rock Your Firefox Review
• PCWorld Review
• The PC Security Article
• How to Opt Out of Everything Online - Time