Oh, the Places You’ve Been! User Reactions to Longitudinal Transparency About Third-Party Web Tracking and Inferencing
Abstract
The paper presents “Tracking Transparency”, a privacy-preserving browser extension that visualizes examples of long-term, longitudinal information that third-party trackers could have inferred from users’ browsing. The authors conducted a longitudinal field study with 425 participants using one of six variants of their extension for a week. They found that, after using the extension, participants had more accurate perceptions of the extent of tracking and intended to take privacy-protecting actions.
Introduction
Internet companies track users’ online activity to make inferences about their interests, which are then used to target ads and personalize their web experience. Prior work has shown that existing privacy-protective tools give users only a limited understanding and incomplete picture of online tracking. This paper aims to address this gap by introducing a new tool and conducting a comprehensive study.
How does the paper cite literature?
The paper cites previous work to establish the context of their study, particularly the limitations of existing privacy-protective tools. It also references prior research on third-party online tracking, transparency, usable privacy, and user studies.
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Are the research method used appropriate?
The authors used a client-side topic modelling algorithm to categorize pages that users visit and combines this with data about the web trackers encountered over time to create visualizations. They conducted a longitudinal field study with 425 participants, which is a robust method for understanding user behavior over time.
What data gather and how is it analyzed?
The data gathered in this study comes from the usage of the “Tracking Transparency” extension by the participants. The authors analysed this data to understand the impact of the extension on users’ perceptions of online tracking and their intentions to take privacy-protecting actions.
Are the “end justified by the mean”?
The results of the study indicate that the use of the “Tracking Transparency” extension led to more accurate perceptions of the extent of tracking and increased intentions to take privacy-protecting actions. Thus, the means (the use of the extension and participation in the study) appear to justify the ends (improved user understanding and behavior regarding online tracking).
Strong points of paper
The paper addresses an important issue in online privacy and proposes a novel tool to help users understand and manage third-party tracking. The use of a longitudinal field study adds robustness to the findings. The paper is also well-structured and clearly written, making it accessible to readers.
Weak points of paper
While the paper makes significant contributions, it would be interesting to see further research on the long-term effects of using the extension and whether the changes in user perceptions and intentions translate into actual behaviour change. Additionally, the study is limited to a specific set of participants, and the findings may not generalize to all internet users.
