Click print

What is clickprint?
A clickprint refers to regular patterns that emerge from a user's activity on the web that can be used to identify the user. A clickprint can consist of a variety of data, including the number of pages per visit to a website, the order in which different areas are viewed, and the time spent on each page. In theory, monitoring and analyzing browsing data enables an organization to assign specific identities to anonymous users. With all browsing data available, the company can track and predict a user's web activity.

Clickprints are simply the general patterns people fall into when browsing the Internet. Such patterns are not uncommon and exist in the way people walk, talk, write, and so on. The more you do an activity, the more likely you are to do it in a repetitive pattern.

The implications of the ability for online businesses to detect and track click prints are ambiguous. An obvious application would be the possibility of adapting content and advertising to the demographic data corresponding to the click print. Whether click printing is widespread is not known, most likely due to the privacy concerns that this type of tracking would generate.