Consumers turn to do-not-track software to maintain privacy

Suppliers of the best-known anti-tracking tools — Ghostery, Adblock Plus and TrackerBlock — all reported big jumps in usage in the second half of 2011.

Ghostery, for instance, is being downloaded by 140,000 new users each month, with total downloads doubling to 4.5 million in the past 12 months, says Scott Meyer, CEO of parent company Evidon. Adblock Plus has been downloaded more than 140 million times and is currently in daily use by more than 17 million Internet users worldwide, managing director Till Faida says. TrackerBlock usage continues to steadily rise, with total daily users numbering in the hundreds of thousands, says Jim Brock, founder of parent company PrivacyChoice. Meanwhile, the goal of newcomer Abine, supplier of Do Not Track Plus, is to make anti-tracking as common as anti-virus for personal computing devices, says CEO Bill Kerrigan, who formerly headed anti-virus giant McAfee's global consumer business. Abine projects the number of Internet users in North America using anti-tracking tools and services will be 28.1 million by the end of 2012, up from 17.2 million today. "We want to drive the next level of adoption," Kerrigan says. "No one is suggesting don't use Facebook or Google. At the same time, we are suggesting there is a better way for consumers to experience those type of products without necessarily being tracked at every step they take in their digital life." (Dec 29)