Prevent Advertising Neworks from Tracking your Activity

Don’t worry. There’s a perfectly legitimate reason why there is picture of a taco there. The Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out (TACO) is a awesome Firefox add-on that when installed, will essentially prevent 84 different advertising networks from tracking your online activity in hopes of serving you targeted ads. These targeted ads actually have a better chance of being clicked on because the user sees it as something that interests them. However, not everyone likes the idea of having their online activity ‘tracked’ and so this is where the TACO add-on comes into play.

Just as how not everyone likes the idea of having targeted ads being directed to them, not everyone also rejects the idea. Ads have been a big revenue with the rise of the Internet. With more and more people on the Internet, that means more and more ads being served and that in turn means more chances of those ads actually being clicked on. With targeted ads, the chances increase even more. For example, would you click on a ad advertising skateboards which you have no interest in or would you click on a ad that advertised basketball jerseys, which so happens that you’ve just purchased one not too long ago?

Targeted ads are not a coincidence. Big advertising networks place cookies in your browser that tracks websites you visit so that it can get an general idea of the things you are interested in. The result are ads that cater to your interest. Depending on who and the type of person you ask, this can be either viewed as a invasion of privacy or as a awesome alternative when viewing ads. In my opinion, if you don’t like any type of ads in the first place, you’ll hate targeted advertising and vice-versa. Although I’m the former type, I do not necessarily despise advertisement. As mentioned earlier, they are a big money maker and they do help out smaller businesses that implement pay-per-click ad models. What I am against is them being able to track my web activity. I guess you can view ads as TV commercials. Sure, a lot of us hate viewing them but if the networks showed you commercials with only the content that you are interested in, it might not be so bad.

Installing TACO

1. In order to use the TACO Firefox add-on, you must of course, use the Firefox browser!

2. In order for TACO to work properly, your browser must also accept third-party cookies. In Firefox, hit the Tools menu at the top and choose Options. Hit the Privacy tab and select the option to accept third-party cookies if it isn’t already selected.

3. Next, simply head over toTACO’s Firefox add-on page to install it in Firefox. Restart your browser for the changes to take effect. If you want to view all the advertising networks that TACO will block along with more information on how TACO works, you can head over to the author’s webpage.

4. Once TACO is installed, head into your Firefox’s cookies store by going back into the Privacy tab in the Options menu and hitting the Cookies button. Advertising networks, especially those that gather information, is required by law to give the users an option to ‘opt-out’ from their tracking. Essentially, this means that they are not allowed to track your web activity. The problem is that most users do not know about this opt-out option and so most likely do not have the opt-out cookie installed. TACO takes care of that by placing those opt-out cookies in your cookie store for 84 of the most notorious advertising networks. Another good news is that the cookies installed by TACO are permanent. Even if you choose to clear your cookies, these opt-out cookies will remain. So basically as long as you have TACO installed, those advertising networks will not be able to track your web activity. If for some reason in the future you want to get rid of the opt-out cookies as well, uninstall TACO first.

As mentioned on their website, there are ‘other’ ways for these advertising companies to sneak some type of data into your browser for tracking. If you are really paranoid, one of the best counter-measures is to empty out your cookies store each time you exit Firefox. Cookies is another hate it or love it type of web technology. By erasing your cookies in your browser, websites can’t properly identify you until they place another cookie in your store and so those items in your Amazon cart will disappear (assuming you weren’t signed in to begin with). With TACO installed, you’ll have at least some control from being tracked by third party companies. To some people, as long as they don’t steal any of their personal information, they could care less about being ‘tracked’ around. It really depends on who you ask.