Blacklight is a privacy inspector hosted at a website called The Markup.
The Markup is a news organization that’s—well, quite different from other news organizations. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about it but I recommend if you want to know more about the site, go and read the About page. One significant element from that page is the statement regarding the site’s dedication to privacy. It is that element that prompted the creation of the Blacklight tool.
Think about how a blacklight works in the physical world. Using ultraviolet light, a blacklight can reveal things not visible in natural or other artificial light. For example, if you’re considering buying or renting a house, you might want to take an ultraviolet flashlight with you and shine it around. If there are traces of urine, human or otherwise, the ultraviolet light will disclose them. While I hadn’t really intended to equate tracking with pee, it adequately describes how I feel about organizations tracking us across the internet.
The Blacklight tool at The Markup is about as simple to use as it could possibly be. You simply type in the website address and hit Enter, or click on Scan Site. All the heavy lifting is done behind the scenes. It scans for Ad trackers, third-party cookies, tracking that evades cookie blockers, session recording services, keystroke loggers, Facebook pixels, and Google Analytics remarketing audiences features. Don’t worry if you don’t know what all of those things are, just know that fewer of any of them is better.
If you type GrownUpTech.com into the Blacklight tool, you’ll find one ad tracker. I had intended on trying to make a few pennies with ads on this site but I just never had the time to put into making it pay off for me. I haven’t been terribly diligent about posting content, for one thing, and it’s a bit intimidating to try and figure it all out. But the little plugin I attached to the website is still there. That’s all, nothing else.
Try it with your favorite shopping site, your favorite news site, and your favorite social media site. They may soon become your ex-favorite shopping site, your ex-favorite news site, and your ex-favorite social media site.