People love their secrets. But in a world where terms like “selling data” and “data mining” get thrown around in tech videos, it can feel scarier than it should. And if you’re reading this, you’re probably curious to know what information websites and mobile apps collect when you use them.
With examples, let’s shed some light on the kind of information sites like this one gather, and what they use it for.
I don’t know if this will scare you, but website owners can see the location (country, region, or city) of their users. Websites and apps use this information to understand where visitors are coming from and possibly tailor content for that region. Nymy Net, for instance, has most of its site visitors in Uganda and the USA, which can be narrowed down to city level. Noticed we have many articles on Kampala? Search engines like Google and Bing also use location data to rank search results based on what’s most relevant to you, considering both your location and, in some cases, the website’s server location.
Device type, operating system, and browser type are other pieces of information site owners collect when you visit. Whether you’re an iPhone user browsing with Safari, an Android device on Chrome, or a desktop running Microsoft Edge, this data helps improve the site’s design so it displays correctly for your device and browser.
Let’s pause here. Website owners could do much more with this data. But in the right hands, this is how it is intended to be utilised. Later, we’ll get into how it can be misused.
Your browsing history is a different story. Site owners can’t directly see it, but Google can if you’re signed in to your Google account. Your browser, whether it’s Chrome, Edge, or something else, is also secretly collecting your data. This is used mainly for personalised ads. The closest instance here is when I was researching for the best budget phones in Uganda; the following days, almost every site I visited showed phone ads.
Using incognito mode can help reduce this kind of tracking, yet clearing your browsing history won’t fully protect you if you’re still signed in. Google’s “My Activity” logs your web and app activity, including YouTube history, and is used for ad targeting, for platforms and sites like Nymy Net that run Google Ads through AdSense. For clarity, unless an advertiser pays for a direct partnership, site owners don’t control the exact ads shown, although we can block certain categories. If you often search for content around pets, adult content😂, or health tips, your ads will reflect that.
If website owners can see all the above, they can also see when you visited and how long you stayed on a particular page of the site. At Nymy Net, this helps us measure how relevant an article is and find the best time to publish new posts.
Other data includes your search engine, search terms, referral source, and language settings. This tells site admins whether you came from social media, another site, or a search engine like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex or Yahoo search, and what words you used to find us. These words are used to improve already published titles and content; yes, sites do that.
Through tools like Google Analytics, site owners can also see your screen resolution (do you know your phone’s screen resolution?). Similar to device and browser type, this helps optimise site design and media quality.
We can also track click behaviour, for example, whether you visited the About Us page or the Contact page. This data allows us to understand what interests our visitors and evaluate how well our content meets their needs.
Now for the creepier part. If you sign up for an account on a site, you may be giving away more: social media profiles, age, gender, email address, and interests. Some sites even track mouse movements, often the ones with flashy, heavy designs, where your cursor changes shape to something else. Visiting such sites isn’t always a good idea. This is where data mining can go beyond ad targeting and into questionable territory.
Google Analytics also collects information like device performance, network type (e.g. Wi-Fi or Cellular) and ad interactions. Much of this isn’t even sent to site admins, but is still gathered by Google. Mobile Apps, on the other hand, when given permissions, can go much deeper, accessing contacts, keystrokes, your device’s GPU, ISP details, screen orientation, photos, videos, and even tracking the usage of other apps. Stories of Facebook collecting metadata from user media files (photos and videos) before they are uploaded are common on the web, as are recent claims about Meta AI scanning photos you have not uploaded.
So, if just visiting a site exposes your location, device type, and more, are you safe? Yes, in most cases. The data is collected in bulk and analysed as a whole, not to single out one person. More personal details like your name, gender, or email that are often sold by data brokers are usually only collected when you choose to provide them, for instance, by creating an account or subscribing to updates.
“The internet isn’t free; you pay for it with your attention and data.” – Unknown
Here’s the deal: About 90% of the free content on the web is supported by advertising. Most of the data collected is used to improve user experience and keep sites running by displaying ads. However, some platforms take it further, selling user data for AI training, sharing it with marketing agencies that flood your email with crap, or, worse, using it for malicious purposes.
What should you do? Don’t accept cookies on sites you don’t trust. Use a separate browser for risky sites and deny permissions where possible. Incognito mode and VPNs can help, but remember, you’re still trusting the browser and VPN provider.
Many news, blog, social media, and video platforms now offer premium packages that remove ads and tracking to reduce data collection and targeting. Nymy Net, for instance, we’re currently testing a donation model to keep the site free and less dependent on advertising revenue.
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