What is device fingerprinting?

Device fingerprinting is the act of identifying a user’s device through the use of attributes associated with the device and connection. Some of these attributes may include: cookies stored on the device, the IP address of the device’s connection, the user agent used to access the site/app, the device’s location coordinates, along with hundreds of other factors.

Why is device fingerprinting important?

The most popular use for device fingerprinting is to re-target advertisements to specific users across the web. Another popular use is for performance of advertisement campaigns. In fact, it is an essential part of making many performance marketing campaigns work properly. Device fingerprinting is also commonly used to detect fraudulent activity in the online advertising industry.

Due to the ubiquity of device fingerprinting across the web, there are some privacy concerns with it. Some browsers and operating systems have taken steps to limit the ability of advertisers to fingerprint a user’s device easily.