Against privacy defeatism: why browsers can still stop fingerprinting

Because of differences in operating systems, browser versions, fonts, plugins, and at least a dozen other factors, different users’ web browsers tend to look different. This can be exploited by websites and third-party trackers to create so-called fingerprints. These fingerprints are much more effective than cookies for tracking users across websites: they leave no trace on the device and cannot easily be reset by the user.

The question is simply this: how effective is browser fingerprinting? That is, how unique is the typical user’s device fingerprint? The answer has big implications for online privacy. But studying this question scientifically is hard: while there are many tracking companies that have enormous databases of fingerprints, they don’t share them with researchers.

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