Firefox creator Mozilla has released a tool to show which companies are monitoring your online browsing activity in its mission to make the Web more transparent. Lightbeam, available as a free Firefox browser extension, shows which third-party companies are tracking your browsing activity, and how they are connected. Those third parties often represent brands and advertisers that want to share your data or display targeted ads. Who's Watching? The aim of the tool, according to Mozilla, is to highlight the first- and third-party sites you interact with, including the parts of the Web that are hidden from plain view. Third parties typically place a small piece of code called a "tracking cookie" on your computer, which they use to watch how you bounce from page to page. Lightbeam allows you to take an in-depth look at how third parties collide with your online activity using three distinct visualizations. The Graph option displays an interactive representation of every website you've visited, and how various third-party services connect to each of those. Pictures and more of the article at the link: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/79282.html
