Ad-Tracking Critics Use Ad Trackers

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We tackled online privacy issues including Do Not Track in How to Stop Companies from Collecting and Selling Your Facebook Info. Meanwhile, AdAge is highlighting an irony over at Consumer Reports, which is also publicizing the DNT feature…

“You might not mind if your kids try and see what you’re doing as you Christmas shop online, but you may not want to share your shopping and surfing history with every big online ad company,” states the site, which features a form letter to send to lawmakers to tell them “to act now to protect your family’s online activities.”

What Consumer Reports failed to disclose is that its own website, ConsumerReports.org, is laden with the full array of advertising-tracking technologies — the very ones they’re telling consumers to take action against.

The site has more than 10 ad trackers. But in a further irony, AdAge has a dozen ad trackers itself, according to Privacyfix. (You can learn more about our ads in Ask Stacy: Can I Trust Your Ads?)

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