Social media sharing buttons included in blogs allow companies to track your surfing habits even if you do not click on them, some of these buttons will insert a tracking cookie in your browser and when you visit other sites it will be notify them of other places you have been visiting, some companies will even create your online profile justifying it saying that they want to serve you targeted advertising, the problem with the scheme is that the user has never consented to Internet browsing habits tracking, many people do not realize that in order to have a cookie from site A they don’t really need to visit site A, third party cookies can be inserted in user’s browsers by visiting any site.
ShareMeNot Firefox privacy addon
Unlike other Firefox privacy addons like NoScript or Ghostery, ShareMeNot will not remove the social media sharing buttons, it keeps them usable while blocking their tracking cookies unless you specifically approve them in the settings. The supported social media buttons at the moment are Facebook, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Twitter,Google +1 and Digg, this addon is part of a research project from the University of Washington (US).
