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"TikTok" in the headline for views but every ad system is sucking up as much data as it possibly can: cross-site tracking pixels, cookies, device ids, fingerprinting, app snooping, extension snooping, etc.
> "TikTok empowers users with transparent information about its privacy practices and gives them multiple tools to customise their experience," a TikTok spokesperson says. "Advertising pixels are industry standard and used widely across social and media platforms"
Such Doublespeak—the word empower really means enfeeble and privacy its opposite.
This wasn't a problem until it was done by a Chinese company, when American companies (Meta, X, Google, etc.) spied on us we saw it as a triumph of entrepreneurism.
I've been tracking this issue since the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The "we" who celebrated it was mostly Silicon Valley VCs and tech press, not everyday users who consistently rated data privacy as their top concern.
Pi-hole hosts files actually support IP mappings for local DNS overrides. The IP approach lets you route TikTok domains to a honeypot server for analytics—way more valuable for monetizing privacy tools than pure blocking.
TikTok, more than any other app, seems to be aware of things that I talk about. I'm not big on conspiracy theories (well until the past six months or so), but I really wonder if TikTok has figured out a way to listen with the microphone on my phone. I will be chatting about the most random thing -- needing a new washing machine -- and then I'll suddenly get some washing machine add in the next hour. Or someone will mention a movie being snubbed for the Oscar's, and then an edit for that movie pops up.
I never did a search or anything else on any app on any devices related to these things, but somehow TikTok seemed to know. Maybe coincidence that I have heightened awareness of... but it does seem different.
Facebook was doing tracking pixels in the 00s. It probably worked even better then because stuff that's currently in apps was on the web back then and fewer people ran adblockers.
Every party in the advertising ecosystem should be assumed to be doing this (and your adblocker should be trying its best to block it).
TikTok is now a Zionist operation being run by (former?) members of Mossad's Unit 8200, which is like the NSA's cybersecurity group. So monitoring everyone is literally the point of TikTok now. Meta, Google, Apple, and others are also participating in it. Silicon Valley not actively mobilizing against this shows how geeks are complicit with genocide and the systems that drive it.
The article says in the title how that won't solve the problem. Their chief solution is guarding against invisible tracking pixels all over the web, and how using a properly equipped browser and extensions can hopefully mitigate them. I found the article's recommendation of suitable browsers to be quite poor: a brush off to Firefox and no mention of LibreWolf, IronFox, etc al.
Been dealing with web tracking since the DoubleClick days. The only real solution is a combo of uBlock Origin and Firefox with total cookie protection turned on. Has worked reliably for years.
Most people don't realize the tracking happens through embedded share buttons and "Login with TikTok" on third-party sites - even if you've never installed the app. Tools like uBlock Origin or Pi-hole can block these domains at the network level.
