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This Machine Exposes Privacy Violations
Former Google engineer Tim Libert is releasing a search engine, WebXray, that aims to find illicit online data collection and tracking—with the goal of becoming “the Henry Ford of tech lawsuits.”
Over the past half-decade, the European Union, a number of US states, and other governments around the world have enacted laws that restrict what kind of data websites can collect, or require a company to receive consent from a user before it does so. Libert had the idea for WebXray while he was still a grad student, researching how websites track their users and transmit the bounty to tech giants, data brokers like Experian, and dozens of other third parties. He decided to turn WebXray, the tool that he’d used to power his research for years, into a public-facing system that helps ordinary users understand the vast scope of the problem, and to allow activists, regulators, and lawyers to document legal violations in order to challenge them.
Or read this on Wired