Amazon is shutting down Alexa internet-tracking service

Amazon is shutting down Alexa, its internet-tracking service that is unconnected to the identically named voice assistant. With the full name Alexa Internet, the service tracks how popular websites are by monitoring traffic as users navigate around. It does so with software that is installed on a small number of web browsers, or when websites decide to install that software on their website themselves. That information is used to pull rankings of the world's most popular websites, though they are not always reliable given the way the information is pulled together. Nonetheless, it has become a useful way of gauging the popularity of websites when their owners might not reveal that information, and is used on Wikipedia and other sources.