A UC Berkeley report provides an in-depth look into the Internet Privacy issue and to what amount you are really being tracked ... several media outlets have reported on this issue. Register | NyTimes | BizJournals All with their own take on the report ... a few key excerpts from their study ...

Dominance of Google
"From our analysis, it is apparent that Google is the dominant player in the tracking market. Among the top 100 websites this project focused on, Google Analytics appeared on 81 of them. When combined with the other trackers it operates, such as DoubleClick, Google can track 92 of the top 100 websites. Furthermore, a Google-operated tracker appeared on 348,059 of 393,829 distinct domains tracked by Ghostery in March 2009 (over 88%)."

This is one of the main reasons why the majority of these "trackers" are included in the MVPS HOSTS file ...

Continued @ Hosts News