nearly all websites track all kinds of shit via cookies, even things you do on other sites than theirs. Tracking of ip-address is the least of our worries.
clear your cookies sometimes, and use an up-to-date web browser, and you should be fine. I can recommend "brave browser", it has a bunch of anti-tracking mechanisms built into it.
The way I understand this, is that at some point internet websites developed a network of data collection that enables them to make money by sharing data.
Some websites had ads, and at some point it became clear that ads are better when you know the users. Then it was one step closer to what we have now where its all shared.
Nowdays there are entire companies like google that have the data space to collect as much information as they want to.
So pretty much anything google related is data collection by default.
A part from advertising I don't actually know what else they user their data for.
And of course manipulating elections and all that jazz.
But the trouble with this is that no one knows really how this data can be used.
Its a little like China collecting citizen data.
I swear google knows more about me than my mother.
They know all about my transactions, what I view and what I store and download.
They simply know my whole internet profile.
That in and of it self is pointless.
The trouble is that anyone at google can anything have access to anyone on the net.
And hence misuse the data.
Google could for instance work with FBI or CIA. They could be even forced to share data even if they don't want to.
For instance google can survey interest in particular products.
A ship from China headed for East Coast will unload, specific cargo.
By the time the ship lands on the coast the vendors already know which retail stores and which products will sell the most. SO for instance a particular ad for particular shoe will give them the edge, to flood specific shops with specific items, to sell all the cargo.
