Last week, I posted a link to a graphic at Upworthy that was all about how we’re tracked online. Many people pointed out the irony inherent in the link, because Upworthy has tons of tracking cookies and things on that page.

I posted about that, and suggested that Upworthy could do better. Here’s a response, reprinted with permission, that I got from Upworthy’s Social Media Director:

I’m Upworthy’s Social Media Director. I saw that you & your fans are concerned about our tracking cookies and want to address it, since it’s extremely important to us as well.

“Tracking bugs” are a hard problem to solve for anyone running a website. We value our fans’ privacy and dislike software that tracks them without their knowledge, but we also want to understand how people are using Upworthy so that we can give them the best experience possible. So we use the same tools that are used most major websites (including wilwheaton.tumblr.com), which include Google Analytics, Quantcast, Facebook Connect, and Twitter Button. 

Users have the option of signing up for our email list or onto the email list of one of our partner organizations, but we never use this information without the user’s express permission. Our policy can be found here, in handy infographic as well as text form:http://www.upworthy.com/privacy

On a related point, Ghostery is pretty much the best browser add-on ever - lets you see what tracking cookies exist on a given site. There’s a Mozilla and Chrome version.
Mozilla:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/ghostery/
Chrome:https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghostery/mlomiejdfkolichcflejclcbmpeaniij/related?hl=en

Hope this helps!

He’s right about Ghostery. I’ve been using it for months, and it’s the best thing ever to speed up browsing and keep bullshit off your computer. I highly recommend it.