This report audits the current Cloak extension against its deterministic shopping-flow fixtures, packaged request rules, glossary, compatibility tests, and browser-visible receipt model. It is a product-coverage study—not a survey of every retailer, not an average count of trackers encountered by shoppers, and not a historical claim that every tested capability shipped for the whole quarter.
This Q2 baseline remains unchanged. The current 0.1.14 build has since added consent assistance, store forgetting, Cloak Check, local price timelines, price-variance alerts, and trial lifecycle improvements. See the current release notes and evidence center for present-day coverage.
01 / Methodology
Reproducible coverage, with a defined boundary.
The review uses the extension source and tests as they existed on the publication date. Each URL example is run through Cloak’s retailer-aware cleaner and compared with an expected destination. Request coverage is counted from the rules that generate the extension’s declarative blocking set. Receipt, privacy-signal, readable-state, fingerprinting, pressure-warning, and commerce-compatibility claims are checked against their dedicated regression tests.
No browsing histories were collected for this report. Browser-visible evidence can show what the extension saw or changed; it cannot reveal hidden server-side joins, merchant account records, inventory systems, or why a price was selected.
02 / Test and rule inventory
What was inspected.
27 shopping-flow fixtures
Search, browse, product, variant, cart, and checkout routes covering major marketplaces, retailers, and supported commerce-platform patterns.
63 request rules
41 tracker rules, 4 session-replay rules, and 18 advertising rules. Advertising and tracker requests remain separate receipt categories.
108 named domains
Named request hosts represented by the packaged rules. This is a coverage inventory, not a claim that all requests from a company are tracking.
2 Shopping Mode rules
A navigation query-cleanup rule and a referrer-policy rule for supported commerce destinations, supplemented by the retailer-aware URL cleaner.
Related suites cover readable cookie and browser-storage cleanup, selected browser fingerprinting reductions, GPC and DNT request headers, checkout-pressure warnings, and consistent this-window, monthly, and all-time protection receipts.
03 / Important findings
Privacy cleanup has to preserve shopping intent.
Clean shopping URLs need retailer-specific logic.
A useful shopping tracker blocker cannot simply delete every query parameter. Amazon tracking parameters, Walmart URL tracking fields, eBay referral tracking, AliExpress tracking links, Alibaba campaign context, and Temu recommendation baggage use different shapes. Cloak canonicalizes supported routes while preserving functional search terms, filters, seller choices, variants, quantities, carts, and checkout state.
Advertising and tracking are related, not interchangeable.
The current rules classify 18 advertising signatures separately from 45 tracker and session-replay signatures. A browser request can support ad delivery, measurement, analytics, replay, or retargeting; the local receipt uses the packaged classification instead of inflating one combined number.
Checkout tracking can remain in readable browser state.
Supported attribution-like values may remain in page-readable cookies, localStorage, sessionStorage, window.name, or history state after the visible link changes. Cloak can report and clear selected readable values. It cannot read HttpOnly cookies or erase server-side customer profiles.
Browser fingerprinting reduction is selected and compatibility-aware.
Cloak reduces selected Canvas, WebGL, language, device-memory, hardware-concurrency, and battery readbacks where supported. These measures reduce chosen recognition signals; they do not provide anonymity or make a browser impossible to recognize.
GPC and DNT communicate preferences.
The extension can send Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track request headers. A receipt can establish that Cloak configured the signals, but not that a site honored them or deleted information it already held.
Pressure warnings describe visible evidence.
Checkout-pressure warnings can respond to browser-visible countdowns, scarcity wording, repeated urgency, or renewal language. They are decision aids, not scam detection and not evidence of price discrimination.
Protection receipts use consistent categories.
This-window, monthly, and all-time views share the same categories for trackers, ads, cleaned URL tags, readable tracking state, selected fingerprinting reductions, and pressure signals. The reset scope changes; the category meaning does not.
04 / Before and after
Representative clean shopping URLs.
These examples come directly from the deterministic shopping-flow matrix. Line wrapping is visual only.
| Flow | Before | After | Intent preserved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon product | amazon.com/Boot/dp/B012345678/ref=abc?psc=1&th=1&tag=x&gclid=y | amazon.com/dp/B012345678/ | Stable product ID |
| Walmart product | walmart.com/ip/Boot/123456789?selectedSellerId=10&variant=blue&sku=20&offerId=30&quantity=2&athAsset=x&adsRedirect=true | walmart.com/ip/Boot/123456789?selectedSellerId=10&variant=blue&sku=20&offerId=30&quantity=2 | Seller, variant, SKU, offer, quantity |
| eBay product | ebay.com/itm/Boot/123456789012?var=600000000001&_trkparms=x&mkevt=1 | ebay.com/itm/123456789012?var=600000000001 | Item and variant |
| AliExpress product | aliexpress.com/item/1005001234567890.html?sku_id=22&gps-id=x&scm=y&pvid=z&aff_platform=p | aliexpress.com/item/1005001234567890.html?sku_id=22 | Item and SKU |
| Alibaba product | alibaba.com/product-detail/Boot_1601010101010.html?spm=x&p4p_pvid=y&pvid=z&src=a&tracelog=b | alibaba.com/product-detail/Boot_1601010101010.html | Product route |
| Temu product | temu.com/goods.html?goods_id=1&refer_page_id=x&_x_sessn_id=y&top_gallery_url=z | temu.com/goods.html?goods_id=1 | Goods ID |
| Shopify-style product | brand.example/products/boot?variant=1&selling_plan=2&purchase_option=subscribe&utm_source=x&gclid=y | brand.example/products/boot?variant=1&selling_plan=2&purchase_option=subscribe | Variant and subscription choice |
| WooCommerce-style cart | shop.example/?add-to-cart=123&quantity=2&attribute_pa_color=blue&utm_source=x&fbclid=y | shop.example/?add-to-cart=123&quantity=2&attribute_pa_color=blue | Cart action, quantity, color |
05 / Changes since the previous quarter
This is the first completed-quarter baseline.
Cloak did not publish a Q1 2026 State of Shopping Tracking report, so there is no controlled previous-quarter inventory to compare. Q2 establishes the comparison format: tested extension version, fixture count, rule count, domain count, request-category split, compatibility scope, and known limitations. Future reports can describe additions, removals, and regressions against this baseline without inventing historical deltas.
06 / Known limitations
What this report cannot establish.
- The 27 fixtures are deterministic regression cases, not a live-market sample or a ranking of retailers.
- The 63 rules target selected browser-visible requests; they do not provide universal tracker or ad coverage.
- Merchant URLs and scripts can change after publication, and compatibility may require updates.
- Readable-state cleanup cannot reach HttpOnly cookies, backend logs, account records, or server-side profiles.
- Fingerprinting reductions are selected measures with compatibility exceptions, not an anonymity guarantee.
- GPC and DNT express preferences; the extension cannot verify every recipient’s compliance.
- Pressure warnings do not identify scams, establish price discrimination, or guarantee savings.
Cloak is an ecommerce privacy extension for desktop Chrome. This report describes the behavior represented by its current code and deterministic tests. Live websites, browser behavior, and packaged rules can change.