Trackography illustrates that merely reading the news online is not as harmless as we might think it is. Everytime we access a media website, our connection passes through the network infrastructure of various countries around the world which subject our data to their laws and jurisdiction.
While our country might have certain laws in place which could potentially safeguard our data, Trackography shows that in some cases, our data travels to countries which do not have a legal privacy framework at all. In other cases, reading the news online means that individuals' data passes through the network infrastructure of adversary states. We cannot control where our data travels to once we access media websites, nor how our data is subsequently handled once it is stored in foreign servers.
Trackography provides a snapshot of the politics of data within a specific moment in time.
We ran our software in different countries around the world and collected results which illustrate the following:
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the countries hosting the servers of media websites
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the countries owning the network infrastructure required to access media websites
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the countries hosting the servers of tracking companies
Some key findings based on the data that we collected include the following:
1. The United States of America (U.S.) is the main country globally which tracks what we read online.
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At least 90% of all media websites have connections which pass through the network infrastructure of the U.S. due to the following reasons:
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the U.S hosts the servers of most tracking companies globally, including the servers of some of the prevailing tracking companies, such as Google, Facebook and Twitter
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the U.S hosts the servers of most media websites
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the U.S owns most of the network infrastructure required to access the servers of media websites and tracking companies
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Google, Facebook and Twitter infrastructure is included in 87.32% of the 2,508 media websites that were analysed by our software. Through these three U.S companies most data about what individuals around the world read online ends up in U.S servers.
2. In some cases, reading the news online results in individuals' data landing in the servers of adversary states. For example:
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Ukraine: 80% of national media websites and, on average, 84.61% of regional media websites have at least one connection which passes through the network infrastructure of Russia.
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Palestinian Territory: 27.59% of national media websites, 50% of regional media websites and 16.67% of news blogs have at least one connection which passes through the network infrastructure of Israel, while 93.1% of national media websites and 100% of regional media websites pass through the network infrastructure of the U.S.
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Pakistan: 5.71% of national media websites and 12.5% of regional media websites have at least one connection which passes through the network infrastructure of India.
3. While your country might have privacy legislation, reading the news online might result in your data travelling to countries which have no privacy law. For example:
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Germany: Some national media websites from our tests have connections which pass through the network infrastructure of India, which currently has no privacy law.
4. Some media organisations which advocate and promote human rights enable multiple companies to track individuals who access their websites. For example:
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Spain's Libertad Digital, an online newspaper for journalism advocacy, enables 49 companies to track its website's visitors - according to one of our tests.
5. The Wall Street Journal, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Kashmir Times enable the most companies globally to track the visitors of their websites - according to some of our tests.
6. Unlike the Global North, most countries in the Global South do not host the servers of their media websites. Instead, they are usually hosted in countries of the Global North which means that their citizens' data is subsequently handled and regulated under different laws and jurisdictions.
7. When we access media websites globally, the main countries our data travels to include the following:
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United States of America
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United Kingdom
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The Netherlands
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Ireland
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Singapore
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Italy
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Germany
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France
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Japan
Even though all the above countries have privacy laws, there are limits. Such laws don't necessarily protect the data of foreign citizens nor does all data fall under these laws. Additionally, it is currently unclear who these countries share collected data with and where such data is eventually stored.
8. Country-specific highlights:
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Kenya: All national media websites and news blogs from our test have at least one connection which passes through the network infrastructure of the United Arab Emirates.
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Pakistan: 74.29% of national media websites and 62.5% of regional media websites have at least one connection which passes through the infrastructure of Oman.
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Syria: 86.96% of national media websites have at least one connection which passes through the network infrastructure of the U.S and the UK.
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Saudi Arabia: 93% of national media websites have at least one connection which passes through the network infrastructure of Italy.
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Russia: 77.78% of national media websites have connections which pass through the network infrastructure of the U.S and the UK.
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Australia: About 94% of national media websites, 81.51% of regional media websites and 77.27% of news blogs have at least one connection which passes through the network infrastructure of Singapore.
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India: 86.3% of national media websites have at least one connection which passes through the network infrastructure of Singapore.
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Brazil: All national media websites from our test have at least one connection which passes through the network infrastructure of Italy.
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Indonesia: National media websites have connections which pass through the network infrastructure of India, Singapore and the U.S in all 3 of our tests.
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Nigeria: All national media websites and all news blogs from our test have at least one connection which passes through the network infrastructure of South Africa.
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UK: National media websites have at least one connection which passes through the network infrastructure of the Netherlands in all 5 of our tests.
The above is not representative for all media websites in these countries, but just for the ones that were included in our media lists. View our media lists on github here. Furthermore, the above percentages represent snapshots within time and can potentially change.
View highlights with regards to the global prevailing tracking companies here.
