Who is tracking you across the Web? Even the ad industry doesn’t know

My first question: Who the hell are all these companies? So I randomly picked one of the outlying ones, a tracking company called ToneFuse, and decided to take a closer look.

My first stop was Evidon’s database of tracking companies, which is supposed to offer transparency into the shadowy world of online tracking. Here’s how ToneFuse describes itself:

"ToneFuse is a marketing and monetization company centered around music. Our company caters to marketers and high traffic music properties in a number of ways."

What kind of data does ToneFuse collect? We don’t know, because ToneFuse doesn’t disclose that information. How does it use that information? Undisclosed. Who does it share that data with and how long does it keep it? Also undisclosed. ToneFuse is not a member of any of the self-regulatory groups set up by the online advertising industry. Want to tell ToneFuse to sod off? Sorry Charlie – there’s no opt-out option.

So much for all that transparency the ad industry keeps raving about. Not surprisingly, PrivacyScore gives ToneFuse a total of zero points out of 50.

It gets worse. Turns out ToneFuse has its roots in the ringtone merchant business, and also has dipped its toes in the ever popular lyrics site industry. Neither of those Web categories has what can be called a good reputation. Though I can find no evidence ToneFuse has ever done anything unsavory, at the very least it has not been keeping very good company.

Ki Mae Heussner of AdWeek had this to say about ToneFuse last year:

By pairing information about music preferences (from ToneFuse's ringtone product) with third-party data, the company says it has created 900 audience segments to help brands target consumers across some 100 publishers. The result is a slew of odd, non-intuitive insights. John Lennon fans, for instance, are 101 percent more likely to own pets while Rihanna lovers are 189 percent more likely to be interested in cruises.

In other words, ToneFuse is in the data mining business, along with just about everyone else.