Lately I’ve been feeling like my online privacy is just an illusion. I was browsing a forum yesterday and had a strong, specific feeling that I was being tracked in real-time, not just by ads but by the site itself. It felt like the page was adjusting based on who it thought I was. I mentioned this weird feeling to a friend, and they sent me a link to a site called Who’s Online .
I checked it out, and it totally creeped me out. The concept that public forums might be actively monitoring and displaying visitor activity in detail is unsettling. It made me wonder how many other places are doing this without us knowing. I’m starting to question the “public but anonymous” feeling of online communities.
Has anyone had a similar moment of realization? How do you deal with knowing your active presence on a site might be public in ways you didn’t expect?