Hong Kong website snoopers lead field

Leopold Chen

Hong Kong websites carry the largest number of trackers that collect information on users' locations and browsing histories among 2,500 websites from 25 regions.

In a survey by NordVPN, researchers visited the top 100 websites in regions using tracker blockers to count tracker numbers.

Hong Kong websites have 45.4 trackers on average that can collect and monetize data, while social media websites in the city have even more - 169 trackers on average.

Second was tech websites with 22 trackers a website, while finance websites came third with an average of 21 trackers.

Porn and education websites are found to have the lowest degree of tracking.

After Hong Kong came Singapore and the United States, which recorded 33.5 and 23 trackers per website.

Results showed websites in north and central European countries have few trackers, while Austrian websites have the least trackers, at 11.4 per website.

"Trackers are usually inserted into the code of websites and are difficult to detect for a regular user," said Daniel Markuson, a digital privacy expert at NordVPN.

"The kinds of information trackers collect can include IP address and location, browsing history, a user's clicks on a website, and what items they looked at and for how long, as well as the data about the browser and device they're using."

The research found the information collected by trackers might be used in advertisement feeding and analytics.

"Trackers can help website admins improve users' experience after analyzing how visitors interact with their website," NordVPN said.

"On the other hand, the information helps to create a user's profile sold to third-parties (such as Google, Facebook, and Adobe). They use the profile to serve more targeted and intrusive ads that follow users from website to website," it added.

The company warned that information collected by trackers might invite cybercrimes such as online scams.

"In the worst case, if cybercriminals get their hands on this data, they could compile a detailed portfolio about someone and use it against them in a phishing attack by crafting a highly personalized and believable message."

Citizens could use VPN services and tracker blockers to avoid data tracking.