With the development of digital technologies, there have been major developments in recent years in the area of user data collection and the targeted advertising developed in this context.
It is considered one of the biggest phenomena of the digital age when people receive advertisements on social media sites about the topics they follow and are interested in.
Social media platforms, on the other hand, obtain information about people not only from their movements within their platforms but also from their movements outside the platform and largely follow people who do not have social media accounts.
Many social media platforms, including channels like Google, Meta and TikTok, make big profits by obtaining the information of millions of users using transparent and invisible graphic files placed on various websites and emails, called tracking pixels.
Thanks to this system, which transfers everything from IP addresses to products clicked to sensitive diagnoses on health sites to the servers of giant companies in a matter of seconds, advertisements are specifically prepared for individuals and their effectiveness is increased.
Even people who do not have a social media account are followed with a “shadow profile”.
Considered one of the darkest aspects of digital surveillance, “shadow profiling” allows data to be collected and stored about an individual even if they are not a user of a platform.
These profiles are created without the user's direct consent, using data provided by their social environment and their movements on the Internet.
This tracking allows for the creation of a consistent identity based on IP address and browser fingerprint, even if the person does not have an account on the platform. So if one day a person decides to become a member of the platform, the company can immediately store the data it has collected about him over the years behind his profile.
Google has “eyes” everywhere on the Internet.
According to DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar data, Google (Alphabet) is the most followed company on websites.
The company can view user data to some extent on about 7 out of 10 pages visited. In other words: Google has an eye on almost every corner of the Internet.
With 30 percent and 19.70 percent respectively, Microsoft and Facebook stand out as the frontrunners. ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, is well behind American companies on the list, at about 5 percent.
66 percent of hospitals in the US use it
In an article published in the US journal PNAS Nexus, a large-scale study of the US healthcare system found that 66 percent of hospitals use tracking pixels.
These pixels communicate directly to large technology companies which clinic the patient clicked on or which disease they sought information about.
According to the information contained in the report, there was a major privacy crisis in the United States. Advocate Aurora Health (AAH), one of the largest not-for-profit health systems in the United States, has used tracking pixels such as Meta Pixel and Google Analytics on its websites to understand how its patients interact with its website and mobile applications and to improve its services.
However, these pixels unknowingly sent not only click data, but also patients' personal health information to third parties such as Meta (Facebook) and Google. The incident, which affected about 3 million people, was brought to court following complaints.
Web beacons are legal under certain conditions
Although the use of tracking pixel technology is not illegal in itself, the data collection and processing activities carried out through these pixels are strictly subject to legal regulations such as the Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (KVKK) in Turkey and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union.
In order for pixels to be used legally, the personal rights of the user must be protected and certain legal requirements must be met.
Any “non-essential” tracking pixels used for advertising, marketing, user behavior analysis or profiling purposes require the active and voluntary express consent of the user.
In addition, companies are obliged to transparently inform users before using pixels. Accordingly, it must be clearly stated for what purpose the pixel is used, to whom and for what purpose the collected data is transmitted, and what rights the user has regarding their data.
A lawsuit has been filed against Meta and Google in the USA
Although the use of tracking pixels is not completely banned in the USA, sharing sensitive data without consent is subject to serious legal sanctions.
More than 50 class action lawsuits have been filed against Meta and Google in the country, particularly in the healthcare space, alleging that the pixels violate Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations.
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also described the secret operation of Pixels as a “fraudulent practice” and fined the companies millions of dollars.
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