Till now AFAIK only Google and Facebook track us, by announcing “Tailored Suggestions” feature Twitter said that it also tracks it’s users, visits to websites via the follow buttons and badges will be recorded in Twitter’s eco system. This is quite a surprise and most of users don’t know until Twitter revealed it. Though Twitter said they’ve no plans to use this information (read at the end what information about you it contains and when it be deleted) for advertising or giving to third parties, but privacy concerns remain for users. However Twitter to uses this information to improve your experience on Twitter by recommending people “Who to follow” on Twitter this appears on home page, which is part of Tailored Suggestions feature.
Tailored Suggestions
It seems Tailored Suggestions feature is enabled by default for most user-base, Twitter says it is testing this feature in selected number of Countries, don’t know what those countries are. Twitter shows/recommends accounts to follow who are followed by other users visited the sites you’ve visited in last ten days. Twitter may also recommends site accounts to follow if you visit those sites frequently.
Turning off Tailored Suggestions feature
You can view accounts recommended by Twitter here. You can also turn off this feature from here. That page actually may not show the suggestions as you may’ve logged out long time back or you don’t have tailored suggestion feature rolled out. But Twitter generated some tailored suggestions for me even without logging into Twitter. You don’t have to surprise here! because Twitter identifies you through their Cookies on your Computer which makes twitter to offer tailored suggestions.
Do Not Track is the Mantra to opt-out of tracking from Twitter
You can enable Do Not Track feature in Firefox/ IE/Safari/Chrome to stop Twitter from collecting this info, as Twitter supports and respects DNT feature you won’t be tracked from the visits to websites in future when surfed from that browser.
What information about you Twitter stores in its system?
Twitter stores the received information about your visits to websites through badges and buttons for a maximum of 10 days in its eco system,, after tend days t your visits to pages will be deleted and Twitter will keep tailored suggestions for you and also keeps aggregate information such as number of visitors to the page.
Conclusion:You can turn off tailored suggestions feature or use DNT feature to stop twitter collecting information about your visits to the websites which have twitter follow buttons and badges embedded.