ADOTAS — Krux’s third annual Cross Industry Study of web data collection activity reveals the significant extent that consumer data is “mined or used” by companies other than site owners at popular content, commerce and marketer websites. It also measures the “data leakage” associated with social media/sharing widgets.
Study highlights include:
- Data collection activity that is within the website owners’ control dropped by 40 percent. This illustrates a concerted effort on the part of many web operators to implement better data governance practices and exert greater control over what’s happening on their pages.
- The number of third parties observed participating in data collection continued its rise, from 168 individual companies in 2011, to 300 in 2012 and 328 in 2013.
- Collection from higher-risk categories rose as well, from 40 percent in 2012 to 46 percent in 2013. Collectors are considered ‘higher-risk’ if there is the potential that they will use the data they collect to power competitive market activity.
