Explanation for Users

The Tracking Report Card is a tool that allows users to see an easy-to-understand "grade" for any website that reflects how privacy-conscious the site is and how honorably the site uses--or misuses--users' data and browsing history. The Tracking Report Card works a lot like the grading system we all were subject to in school: it assigns a grade based off of a rubric.

First, we grade the third-party trackers that are found on a particular site. The list of factors that go into grading each tracker include:

-Whether the third-party site uses tracking cookies -Whether it offers an opt-out -Whether it actually deletes the tracking cookie when you opt-out -Whether it adds a tracking cookie when you opt-out -Whether it deletes the tracking cookie when you send the Do Not Track header

The grades of the third-party trackers on a site are then used to evaluate the first-party site. The grade of the site is computed using the site's "GPA" (the average of the grades of the trackers found on it) as well as the number of trackers it carries.