Most privacy advice is abstract: "websites track you." Blacklight makes it concrete. It's a free tool from The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom, that scans any website you name and shows you exactly who's harvesting data from that page, in about 30 seconds.
What it shows you
Point it at a site you actually use, your bank, a news site, a store, and it reports:
How many third-party ad trackers and cookies are on the page.
Whether the site runs session-recording or keystroke-capturing scripts that watch what you type before you even hit submit.
Which big platforms receive your data, Google, Meta, and now TikTok and X.
The specific ad-tech companies getting it, named.
Why we trust it
The Markup is a nonprofit whose whole mission is exposing tech's tracking, not doing it. No login, no paywall, nothing sold about you. It's run over 18 million scans and was updated this February to catch TikTok and X pixels. It's journalism, not a product.
How to start
Go to themarkup.org/blacklight.
Type in a website you use and press scan.
Read the report, the tracker count and any keystroke monitoring are the ones to notice.
Act on it: install a content blocker, or switch to a lighter alternative for the worst offenders.
One honest limit: Blacklight reveals tracking, it doesn't block it. That's your next step, a free content blocker like uBlock Origin does it in two clicks.
Free at themarkup.org/blacklight.
Privacy is a practice. We help you get started.
Up next · Friday
A room-by-room pass to quiet your smart home: the TV that logs what you watch, the speaker that's always listening, and how to shut them up.