French websites contain an average of 17 trackers, capable of collecting and monetising Internet users’ data, while those in Hong Kong count some 45 trackers. Ecommerce sites are home to the most, according to a study conducted by NordVPN.

France's websites have an average of 17.6 trackers, much fewer than those in Hong Kong (45.4), Singapore (33.5) or the United States (23.1), but more than those in Sweden and Denmark (11.7) or Austria (11.4). It is important to note that the number of trackers largely depends on the data protection laws in force - or not - in a given country. This is why websites in Europe, where General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules are applied, have fewer trackers than those in Asia or the United States.

In terms of France's websites, commercial sites have the most trackers (27), just ahead of media sites (26). Unexpectedly, pornographic sites are among those that have the fewest trackers (5). On an international scale, it is nevertheless social media platforms that "monitor" their users the most, with an average of 28 trackers per site. However, in Hong Kong and Singapore, such sites were noted to have an average of 169 and 143 trackers respectively.

The majority of trackers found by NordVPN belong to third-party sites and services. Overall, about 30% of the third-party trackers belong to Google, 11% to Facebook and 7% to Adobe. As a reminder, these trackers can collect data about your browsing habits (for example, the websites you visit or what you click on), your IP address or even personal data such as your email address.

To achieve these figures, NordVPN researchers examined the 100 most popular sites in 25 countries, according to SimilarWeb data.

 - AFP Relaxnews