Just how much can webpages learn about you based on your browsing behaviour? Quite a lot, it would seem.
A new web experiment, called Clickclickclick, describes what you’re doing on the page, as you do it, and then attempts to use your actions to profile you.
It predicts if you’re at work or not based on your timezone, your gender based on your cursor movements and your location based on your webcam.
Naturally, it has to ask permission to access the latter, but it’s remarkable to what extent sites are able to profile their users based on this sort of data.
The entire experience is narrated by a guy who’s a little too interested in your web habits, and it also comes with a running text commentary.
As you move around the site, you unlock more “achievements”, all the different ways sites track you. It’s surprisingly addictive.
The experiment was designed by VPRO Medialab in collaboration with Studio Moniker who have a “shared field of interest” in big data and online profiling.