We Scanned 38 of the Most Popular Websites — Here’s What’s Tracking You
Yahoo loads 122 trackers. WebMD loads 95. We used TrackerScout to grade 38 of the most popular websites and the results are disturbing.
Disclosure: The author of this article is also the creator of TrackerScout, the Chrome extension used to conduct these scans. This is not an impartial review — it’s a demonstration of what the tool reveals. Every data point below is real, collected by visiting each site and counting the third-party tracker domains loaded using the Disconnect open-source tracker database of 3,900+ known tracking domains. You can verify any of these results yourself by installing TrackerScout from the Chrome Web Store and visiting these sites.
We installed TrackerScout and visited 38 of the most popular websites on the internet — the sites you probably use every single day. We let each page fully load, waited for all the background scripts to fire, and recorded exactly how many third-party trackers were watching.
The results are disturbing.
The Worst Offenders
These sites loaded the most third-party trackers. Every tracker is a separate company receiving data about your visit — your device, your location, your browsing behavior.
| Site | Grade | Trackers | Companies | Worst Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yahoo | F | 122 | 97 | 99 Advertising |
| Daily Mail | F | 96 | 72 | 69 Advertising |
| WebMD | F | 95 | 65 | 64 Advertising, 14 Fingerprinting |
| Weather.com | F | 92 | 73 | 72 Advertising |
| MSNBC | F | 67 | 50 | 41 Advertising, 11 Fingerprinting |
| Fox News | F | 59 | 44 | 42 Advertising |
| Amazon | F | 39 | 35 | 31 Advertising |
| NY Times | F | 38 | 28 | 21 Advertising, 7 Fingerprinting |
| Microsoft | F | 38 | 26 | 20 Advertising, 8 Fingerprinting |
Yahoo loaded 122 trackers from 97 different companies on a single page load. That means 97 separate organizations received data about your visit before you even clicked anything. WebMD — a site people visit when they’re worried about their health — loaded 95 trackers, including 14 fingerprinting scripts that can identify your specific device across the internet.
News Sites Are the Worst
Every major news site we scanned scored an F. Fox News: 59 trackers. MSNBC: 67. NY Times: 38. Daily Mail: 96. The sites that claim to inform you are also the ones tracking you the hardest. The advertising trackers alone outnumber the actual journalists at most of these outlets.
BBC scored slightly better at 23 trackers but still earned an F. The only news outlet that scored well was Reuters — which loaded zero third-party trackers.
Health Sites Are Selling Your Symptoms
WebMD loaded 95 trackers including 64 advertising trackers. When you search “chest pain symptoms” at 2 AM, 65 different companies know about it. Healthline wasn’t much better with 17 trackers. Mayo Clinic was the cleanest health site at 7 trackers, earning a C.
Shopping: Amazon Is Watching
Amazon loaded 39 trackers from 35 companies — a solid F. Every product you look at is broadcast to dozens of ad networks. Walmart was surprisingly clean at B+ with only 3 trackers. Target scored a D with 14, mostly fingerprinting scripts.
The Cleanest Sites
| Site | Grade | Trackers | Why It’s Clean |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | A+ | 0 | Non-profit, no ads, donation-funded |
| Craigslist | A+ | 0 | Minimal design, no ad network |
| A+ | 0 | First-party ad system only | |
| Reuters | A+ | 0 | Wire service, minimal tracking |
| A+ | 1 | Tracks you internally, not via third parties | |
| PayPal | A+ | 1 | Financial site, security-focused |
Wikipedia, Craigslist, Reddit, and Reuters loaded zero third-party trackers. Google’s homepage loaded only 1 — though Google itself is the tracker on most other sites. The irony: the company that tracks you everywhere else keeps its own front page clean.
The Full Rankings
| # | Site | Grade | Score | Trackers | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yahoo | F | 15 | 122 | 97 |
| 2 | Daily Mail | F | 15 | 96 | 72 |
| 3 | WebMD | F | 15 | 95 | 65 |
| 4 | Weather.com | F | 15 | 92 | 73 |
| 5 | MSNBC | F | 15 | 67 | 50 |
| 6 | Fox News | F | 15 | 59 | 44 |
| 7 | Amazon | F | 15 | 39 | 35 |
| 8 | NY Times | F | 15 | 38 | 28 |
| 9 | Microsoft | F | 15 | 38 | 26 |
| 10 | BBC | F | 28 | 23 | 15 |
| 11 | eBay | F | 39 | 17 | 9 |
| 12 | Healthline | F | 39 | 17 | 13 |
| 13 | Target | D | 46 | 14 | 7 |
| 14 | Airbnb | D | 52 | 12 | 8 |
| 15 | Booking.com | D | 58 | 10 | 8 |
| 16 | Netflix | C | 61 | 9 | 5 |
| 17 | CNN | C | 68 | 7 | 4 |
| 18 | Spotify | C | 68 | 7 | 6 |
| 19 | Mayo Clinic | C | 68 | 7 | 7 |
| 20 | C+ | 72 | 6 | 3 | |
| 21 | YouTube | B | 76 | 5 | 1 |
| 22 | Twitch | B | 76 | 5 | 4 |
| 23 | TikTok | B | 80 | 4 | 2 |
| 24 | Bing | B | 80 | 4 | 2 |
| 25 | X (Twitter) | B+ | 85 | 3 | 2 |
| 26 | Walmart | B+ | 85 | 3 | 2 |
| 27 | A | 90 | 2 | 1 | |
| 28 | A | 90 | 2 | 1 | |
| 29 | Zillow | A | 90 | 2 | 1 |
| 30 | A+ | 95 | 1 | 1 | |
| 31 | PayPal | A+ | 95 | 1 | 1 |
| 32 | Coinbase | A+ | 95 | 1 | 1 |
| 33 | Wikipedia | A+ | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| 34 | A+ | 100 | 0 | 0 | |
| 35 | Reuters | A+ | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| 36 | Craigslist | A+ | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| 37 | Etsy | A+ | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| 38 | Expedia | A+ | 100 | 0 | 0 |
What This Means For You
Every time you read the news, check the weather, or look up a health symptom, dozens — sometimes hundreds — of companies are collecting data about you. They know what you read, what you searched, what device you’re using, and often where you are. This data is bought, sold, and aggregated to build advertising profiles that follow you across the internet.
The sites that scored well prove it doesn’t have to be this way. Wikipedia runs one of the most visited websites in the world with zero trackers. Reddit does it with zero. Reuters does it with zero. The trackers exist because these companies chose to put them there.
How to Check Any Site Yourself
TrackerScout is a free Chrome extension that gives every website an instant privacy grade from A+ to F. It runs entirely in your browser — your browsing data never leaves your device. Install it from the Chrome Web Store, visit any site, and see the grade in your toolbar. Click the extension for a full breakdown of trackers, cookies, HTTPS security, and more.
Pro users get AI-powered privacy policy summaries that cut through pages of legal jargon to tell you what a site is actually doing with your data. Learn more at trackerscout.com.
Methodology: Each site was visited using a headless Chromium browser with the Disconnect tracking protection list (3,900+ known tracker domains). Third-party requests were intercepted and matched against the tracker database. Scores were calculated using TrackerScout’s exponential decay algorithm. Scans were performed on April 6, 2026. Results may vary based on geographic location, login state, and A/B testing variations on each site.