I shop online a lot. It’s convenient, I can usually find exactly what I’m looking for and, living in Tokyo, it’s sometimes the easiest way for me to get products that aren’t readily available here. I find what I want, place the order and generally don’t think much about what happens after that.
But retailers have plenty to remember. Every product I look at and every purchase I make can reveal something about how I shop and what I might spend money on next. Some of that information makes shopping easier for me, but it can also be used for advertising or become valuable to other companies.
I’m not going to stop shopping online because of that, and you probably aren’t either. But knowing what retailers can do with your data makes it a lot easier to decide how much of it you actually want to give them.
More from CNET
This article was made possible in part by Incogni. It was written and edited independently without partner oversight.
Once you check out when shopping online, the transaction isn’t necessarily over
Once you hit the checkout button, you’re probably done thinking about the transaction. The retailer may not be. The searches you made, products you looked at and things you ultimately bought can all be useful well after your order is confirmed.
Much of this falls under first-party data, which is just information a retailer collects directly from you as you use its service. Your browsing activity, purchases and interactions with an account or loyalty program can all fall into this category.
This becomes useful for both you and the retailer when you have an account or belong to a loyalty program. If you’re signed in, the retailer can connect activity from different visits instead of treating each shopping trip as a separate event. Over time, that can reveal quite a bit about how you shop.
Of course, the same information can help with selling you more stuff. If you regularly search for tennis equipment, buy a particular brand of craft beer every month or keep looking at a gaming PC without pulling the trigger, those are useful signals about what you might spend money on later.
That’s also why your name isn’t necessarily the most interesting piece of information a retailer has about you. Knowing what you buy, what you almost buy, how often you shop and what keeps getting your attention can be considerably more beneficial.
Retailers can use your data to keep selling to you
Retailers can use what they know about your shopping habits to decide what to show you next. Spend some time looking at PS5 games and leave without buying a copy, and you may see them again in a recommendation. And your purchase history is useful for the same reason. If you regularly buy the same kinds of products, that’s a decent indication of what you might be interested in later.
Cookies and tracking pixels are two common ways websites keep track of this activity. Cookies are files that live on your device that remember things like your online activity and behavior. Pixels are small, invisible images that monitor user behavior, like what you click on or add to your cart.
Online retailers can use other methods, like device fingerprinting and the advertising identifiers used on mobile devices. Some of this happens entirely on the retailer’s own site, called first-party tracking. But retailers can also allow advertising companies and other third parties to track activity on their sites.
That’s part of the reason you can look at something in one online store and see ads for it elsewhere. Depending on its privacy practices, a retailer may also get information from marketing partners, advertisers, data brokers and other companies. So what you search for and buy on one site isn’t necessarily the full extent of what a retailer can know about your interests.
Retailers can make money from what they know about you
Moe Long/CNETYour purchase can be valuable to a retailer beyond the money you spent. What you search for, look at and buy can help retailers group customers by their interests and shopping habits. Some retailers use this information through retail media networks, where advertisers pay to reach particular groups of shoppers on the retailer’s website, app or elsewhere online.
That doesn’t necessarily mean a retailer is selling a list with your name and purchase history. It can make money by letting advertisers target certain audiences or by providing insights based on customer behavior. Data brokers can also collect purchase history, online activity, location and other information from various sources, giving retailers and advertisers even more ways to learn about potential customers.
You can limit how much of your shopping activity gets tracked
It would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to prevent all data collection when you shop online, but you can limit that tracking. Retailers need some information to process and deliver your order, and certain cookies are necessary for websites to work properly. So instead of trying to be completely anonymous, focus on cutting down on tracking and sharing that you don’t need.
Here are a few things that can help:
- Use an ad blocker or tracker blocker. Tracker blockers can reduce third-party tracking, and some ad blockers also block pixels and other trackers. Neither will stop everything, and ad blockers aren’t a substitute for privacy and security software, so you’ll want antivirus and a VPN.
- Adjust your browser’s privacy settings. Restrict third-party cookies and tracking, deny unnecessary location access and reject optional cookies. Privacy-focused browsers may block some tracking by default.
- Use private browsing when necessary. Incognito and private windows generally don’t save your history or cookies after you close them, but they don’t make you anonymous or stop websites from tracking you during your session.
- Clear cookies and browsing data occasionally. This can remove identifiers used for tracking and personalization, though it may log you out and erase preferences.
- Be selective about what you provide. Skip optional personal information, and consider whether creating an account or joining a loyalty program is worth the additional data you may share.
- Check shopping-app permissions. Turn off access to your location and other information when the app doesn’t need it.
- Opt out of personalized advertising. Browsers, operating systems and advertising programs offer ways to limit personalized ads. You’ll still see ads, but opting out can limit how your activity is used to personalize them.
- Remove your information from data brokers. You can opt out yourself or use a data removal service to handle requests for you. This won’t remove data held directly by retailers, but it can reduce the information about you circulating elsewhere. At least for a while.
You have some control over what retailers know about you
Shopping online requires sharing some personal information, and there’s no practical way around that. What you can control is how much information you provide, beyond what’s necessary, and how easily your activity can be tracked elsewhere. A few changes to the ways you browse and shop won’t make you invisible online, but they can help leave folks with less information to work with.
