German company behind privacy browser Cliqz buys anti-tracking tool Ghostery
The German company Cliqz, which develops its own ‘privacy browser’, has announced the acquisition of Ghostery. This American company is developing a browser add-on that can block trackers.
A spokesman for Cliqz, a subsidiary of the German publisher Hubert Burda Media, confirmed the news to the newspaper Die Zeit. It is unknown what amount is involved in the takeover. Cliqz and Ghostery both offer tracker protection, but do so in different ways. Cliqz ensures that collected data cannot be traced back to an individual and Ghostery ensures that trackers are blocked in their entirety. The German company tells the newspaper that it wants to combine these two methods through the acquisition. The complete blocking would then be used for ‘stubborn trackers’.
According to the newspaper, this means that complete blocking is paramount and that the Cliqz method is used if the blocklists cannot be updated quickly enough. Cliqz promises that its own product with the Ghostery addition will remain open source. It is not clear whether that promise will also apply to Ghostery. The add-on’s source code is not public. As a result of the acquisition, Ghostery will become German, so that German law no longer applies to the company. Part of Ghostery is not part of the acquisition. This section continues in the US under the name Evidon and is aimed at business customers.
Cliqz started out as a browser add-on for Firefox, but released its own browser last year. The add-on has about half a million users, according to the newspaper; the browser itself has about 150,000 users. Ghostery has approximately 10 million users, according to Cliqz estimates. In August, Mozilla invested in the German company.
Ghostery has been in the news before because it sells user data to advertising companies. The company said at the time that it does not involve data that enables targeted advertising or the identification of individual users. According to the company, the passing on of data can be prevented by leaving Ghostrank disabled. In 2015, the company announced a consumer messaging platform that would allow users to see product announcements and other advertisements in their browsers. This option can be turned off via the advanced settings of the tool.