Abstract

The world wide web is simultaneously characterized by permanence and ephemerality. The changeability of the web is accompanied by various recording practices, including tracking and web archiving, and the it is thus not only a place for communication but also for recording and registration. This chapter contributes to the theorizing about recording as a central feature of digital media by offering insights into the characteristics of the web, of prominent tracking technologies, and of the archived web in web archives. It argues for the necessity of historical studies of tracking and shows how web archives are fundamental for such studies because the web itself is not an archive of the web of the past.