A cunning new way has been discovered to monitor the activity of internet users - tracking battery life.
Following someone's online movements is useful to brands because it helps them to serve targeted ads.
Many people delete their cookies, or use a private web browsing mode, to thwart these advertisers.
But researchers have found a new way for advertisers to glean information about someone's browsing habits.
Two popular web scripts are being used to target a device's Battery Status API, which is the system used to give web browsers data about a device's battery life.
Because the API cannot be turned off, a user can be monitored even in private browsing modes or behind a virtual private network.
Another unconventional way of tracking users was by analysing the lists of fonts installed by a user - providing a fingerprint which helped track the user around the web.
Another method was by analysing how a browser processed audio data.
Most web tracking is conducted by advertising giants Google and Facebook. However, the experts found that one site had 81,000 different trackers in operation.
The Battery Status API was introduced in HTML 5 and gives browsers the number of seconds it would take to fully charge the battery.
They should work in the user's favour - for example a website could serve up a low-power version of its site if the user's computer was running low on battery - but could have another use.
The discovery was made by researchers at Princeton University.
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