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Browsing histories are unique enough to reliably identify users

ZDNet – Mozilla research – Online advertisers don’t need huge lists of the sites we access. Just 50-150 of our favorite sites are enough.”A recently published study conducted by three Mozilla employees has looked at the privacy provided by browsing histories. Their findings show that most users have unique web browsing habits that allow online advertisers to create accurate profiles. These profiles can then be used to track and re-identify users across different sets of user data that contain even small samples of a user’s browsing history. Effectively, the study comes to dispel an online myth that browsing history, even the anonymized one, isn’t useful for online advertisers. In reality, the study shows that even a small list of 50 to 150 of the user’s favorite and most accessed domains can let advertisers create a unique tracking profile…”

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