Fingerprinting
Analytics & privacyDefined term
Fingerprinting derives a stable identifier from properties a device reveals incidentally: rendering quirks, fonts, screen and hardware characteristics, protocol details. Combined, these can be distinctive enough to re-identify a device with no cookie stored at all.
Because nothing is written client-side, deletion controls don't reset it — which is why standards bodies treat it as an abuse to mitigate rather than a feature, and browsers respond by reducing entropy: trimming APIs, coarsening values, and randomizing outputs.
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Analytics & privacy4 of 28 terms
- Event pipeline⦿ liveThe path a user interaction travels from client capture through collection, processing, and storage into reported numbers.Analytics & privacy
- Consent signal⦿ liveThe recorded user choice that gates what a site may collect — and the mechanism that decides which tags ever fire.Analytics & privacy
- Data minimisation⦿ liveThe privacy-by-design principle of collecting only what a stated purpose requires — a systems constraint, not a policy line.Analytics & privacy
- FingerprintingIdentifying a device by combining incidental signals — fonts, canvas, hardware — without storing any identifier on it.Analytics & privacy