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I always feel like somebody’s watching me and, in fact, when I’m online many someones are. So, who is watching? Exactly who you would think is: AdMob (Google), AdSense (Google), DoubleClick (Google), Amazon, Facebook, Adbrite, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo and the list goes on.

However, to find out specifically who’s tracking you when visit Wired, for example, you need to get the Ghostery plugging for Firefox and, now, the browser for the rest of us, Safari.

Download and double-click it — it will install automagically and then launch a setup wizard that walks you through installation process. Of course, Ghostery would like to track you, but it only does if you let it (i.e. opt in).

Once it’s operational, Ghostery will list the companies placing cookies and tracking users on a particular site. And, note in the image above that all of the ad tracking service company names are struck through, meaning Ghostery is blocking their activities, a feature you can enable during setup.

The eye in the sky…

Further, perhaps the most surprising thing Ghostery will tell you is that Google and Facebook are everywhere. For example, when you’re logged into Facebook, websites (i.e. FairerPlatform.com) with the Facebook “like” button talk to Zuckerberg’s ever toiling minions and track your coming and going.

Is that evil? I guess that depends on what you think Google, Amazon, Facebook et al are doing with the information.

My assumption is that they want to make money and use the data collected to better sell me stuff, which (if my wife’s right) I do with acquisitive ease.

Ready to download Ghostery and stare back at the abyss?

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