Ideally, any website should not be able to read the the history of sites that a user visited previously. Even Google is not capable of tracking the previous sites a user has visited. But a small CSS hack and some spicy Javascript is just enough to use a trial and error method to find out if a user has been to specific websites.

Mikeonads came up with a script that is using this method to estimate if the visitor is male or female. The Javascript makes use of the Quantcast Top 10K websites and the male:female ratio that they provide plus a neat algorithm to compute the percentages for male and female likeliness.

Mine turned out 50/50 :( because I have switched off my history !! Good luck and let me know what the script thinks about your gender ;)


The same principle could possible be used to display targeted advertisements. Have been to a lot of parenting websites lately? How about parenting ads? Like sports? How about an ESPN subscription? It’s a bit scary, don’t you think? But not to worry as of now, without running the javascript, your privacy is still maintained.

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Raju is the founder-editor of Technically Personal. A proud geek and an Internet freak, who is also a social networking enthusiast. You can follow him on Facebook and on Twitter. Mail Raju PP.

4 Responses so far | Have Your Say!

  1. Pretty nice site, wants to see much more on it! :)

  2. interesting! i really wonder their algo on this one. ^_^

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