How many websites contain Google content?

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I'm a digital content producer with a heavy emphasis on freedom and privacy. I'm a massive... [more]

3 years ago

Topics: Google, Privacy, Freedom

Introduction

At its core, the internet is a decentralized network of independent websites, servers, and computers. However, in the real world, this decentralization is a bit of a misconception. In reality, nearly every website you use on a daily basis is dependent on a single company: Google.

Google effectively runs the internet. They control what websites get seen by adjusting what websites appear in their search engine. They control what content can be shared through their hosting platforms. They can even effectively destroy a website by blocking in Chrome.

Its no secret that even non-technical users don't trust Google's privacy practices. Together with Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook, Google is easily one of the top 5 most privacy invasive companies in the world. But if privacy is something that concerns you, you can always just not use Google, right?

Methods

To determine how many websites on the internet load Google content, I decided to just go at it randomly. I opted not to use any "Top 100" lists to prevent possible bias. Instead, I just asked several people I know for a few websites that aren't hugely popular, but still used relatively frequently. I ignored sites owned by Google themselves, as well as Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter, and Apple, as I'm interested more in independent websites.

To determine whether or not a site loaded Google domains I used uMatrix, an open source tool that shows you what content is being loaded on a website, and from where. My goal was to survey 100 independent websites to get a solid representation of what percentage of sites use Google content. You can see a complete list of the sites surveyed at the bottom of this article.

Results

Out of the 100 random sites surveyed, 83 of directly contained some form of Google service. That means that 83% of websites I visited were dependent on Google and/or shared information with it. Assuming this number is reasonably representative of the internet as a whole, that means that only about 1 in 8 websites you visit is actually independent of Google.

The fact that roughly 83% of the internet directly loads Google content is concerning in itself when it comes to the supposed decentralized nature of the internet. However, it gets even worse. Only 2% of the websites surveyed didn't contain any content from Facebook, Google, and Amazon, and not a single website was entirely independent of any third party company's resources. This means that 98% of websites on the internet are dependent on at least 1 of 3 massive tech companies, all three of which have highly questionable privacy and ethics practices.

Conclusion

In the worst case scenario, couldn't you just not use these sites? Sure, only 1 in 50 sites doesn't have Facebook, Google, or Amazon content, but it must be possible to avoid these 3 companies. Well, it gets even worse once you start to realize that its practically impossible to not use Google, Facebook, and Amazon services. Let's say that by some miracle your profession doesn't require you to use any of the 98% of the internet that requires you use Google, Facebook, and Amazon. Somehow your school doesn't use sites that are dependent on invasive 3rd party services, and all of your friends and family communicate over privacy respecting platforms. Even in an ideal situation like this, there's still one almost unavoidable category of sites: Government websites. The White House's website, the IRS website, and even the US Voting Registration website are all dependent on Google services and contain trackers. That means that Google, and private company, is responsible for the services that power major aspects of the legal system and US government. Even if you don't agree with Google's privacy practices, you may not even get a choice to not use their services if you want to register your car, register to vote, and pay taxes.

Solution

Unfortunately, there's no perfect solution to this problem, at least as far as I know. However, there are ways to help reduce the issue a fair bit. First off, using a tool like uMatrix to block Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other invasive 3rd party resources can be a great first step. The main issue with this is that it will often break websites, especially if they involve signing into an account or entering other information. A great way to mitigate sites like this is to use Tor. Tor helps to protect your identity from websites, allowing you to create accounts while making it very difficult for Google to tie information back to your real identity. Once again, Google gets in the way with ReCaptchas, which attempt to block Tor users on websites. If a website makes use of ReCaptchas and you don't want to expose your identity to Google, you basically have no choice but to not use the site. However, even if you simply block 3rd party resources on the majority of sites and just settle for using Google services on sites that use ReCaptchas, you'll still greatly reduce the amount of information Google has about you.

It all comes down to how worried you are about privacy and how wiling you are to use alternative sites.

If you don't care about privacy at all, and just want a convenient internet experience, you may choose just to use the internet normally. If you want a moderately more private experience but don't want to sacrifice easy of use, you may want to install a program like PrivacyBadger, which attempts to automatically detect unnecessary third party resources and block them. If you're relatively concerned about privacy, you could use uMatrix, which has a significant learning curve, but will greatly increase your privacy online. Finally, if you're committed to having the most private experience possible, you may want to use Tor (in combination with the knowledge of how to properly use it) to ensure your information is kept private and anonymous.