When you think of one of the most terrifying things that could potentially happen to you in your life, the entirety of your porn browsing history being leaked online for the world to see would almost certainly make its way into the top three. An ongoing debate regarding whether or not this could ever happen has seen the likes of PornHub offer their thoughts on the matter, denying that we could ever witness a hacking scandal that would lead to you finding out that your neighbor has a foot fetish.
Questions were raised regarding the privacy of users’ porn searches following an article penned by software engineer Brett Thomas, titled ‘Online Porn Could Be The Next Big Privacy Scandal.’ In the piece, Thomas argued that websites’ use of trackers would allow them to store your browsing history, writing: “Web browsers leave an essentially unique footprint every time you visit a web page, even in Incognito mode (and even without supercookies). This is well established; many web tools such as Panopticlick will confirm that you give a website lots of information about your computer every time you visit.”
Also See: The 6 Different Personas People Adopt When They’re Having Sex
Thomas also stated that websites store enough information to directly link your account to your browser footprint, meaning that an individual’s web history could easily be attributed to them, regardless of whether or not they utilized a service such as Incognito mode. However, PornHub has now spoken out against Thomas’ claims, releasing a statement to Vice’s Motherboard which cited how much service space the company would need to store the browsing history of the site’s viewers. According to PornHub, the site receives 300 million per day, which would require roughly 3,600 terabytes of data to store. The statement also claimed that the company’s server logs contain “only the IP and user agent for a very limited time,” and that they do not take note of browser footprints.
However, according to Motherboard the top five porn sites in the US do have tracking elements installed, with them distributing users’ search data to third-party sites such as Google and Tumblr. Even worse, the data strings attached to these porn sites visits aren’t masked by the likes of XVideos, XHamster, and XXNX, with them displaying exactly what type of porn its users have been watching. RedTube and PornHub are the only sites in the top 5 to actively mask the viewing habits of its users.
So while it is perhaps illogical to believe that the world’s top porn sites could possibly pull together the resources to track the browsing data of each and every one of their millions of visitors, it’s safe to assume that your viewing habits are being passed along to other companies without your explicit consent, who use the data compiled from your browsing history in order to tailor advertisements to you. It’s certainly a scary thought, though admittedly not as scary as your employers finding out your unusual sexual kinks.
Photo: Getty Images
