[Josh2600hz]

Most of the traffic tracking on the web involves plugins (generally in the form of a toolbar). I don't know about you guys, but I haven't had a 3rd party toolbar in my browser interface in a long time.

Compete, Alexa, etc. they're all tracking people who don't understand technology.

[betterth]

But it IS fair to say that the demographics of the set of users who have toolbars installed into their browser is different than those who do not.

Specifically, those that have them installed are more likely to be non-tech users than those without.

That's my guess with 0 data to back it up (but plenty of useless anecdotes!)

[jcampbell1]

Compete buys samples of traffic from ISPs as its primary datasource. Your toolbar theory is incorrect.

[spindritf]

> Compete, Alexa, etc. they're all tracking people who don't understand technology.

That would mean that G+ is even stronger as it seems mainly popular with the tech crowd.

[pestaa]

I generally agree with your sentiment, but let's not get carried away: using 3rd party toolbars does not automatically render you unaware of technology.

[eli]

No, but it makes for a very non-representative sample. Consider the number of people who lack the administrative rights to install a toolbar on the computer they use most often.