Your browser does not support JavaScript!

Home    Investigating the privacy implications of cross-device tracking  

Results - Details

Add to Basket
[Add to Basket]
Identifier 000423009
Title Investigating the privacy implications of cross-device tracking
Alternative Title Διερεύνηση των επιπτώσεων στην ιδιωτικότητα της παρακολούθησης μεταξύ πολλαπλών συσκευών
Author Σολωμός, Κωνσταντίνος Δ.
Thesis advisor Μαρκάτος, Ευάγγελος
Reviewer Ιωαννίδης, Σωτήρης
Χριστοφίδης, Βασίλης
Abstract Although digital advertising fuels much of today's free Web, it typically does so at the cost of online users' privacy, due to continuous tracking and leakage of users' personal data. In search for new ways to optimize the effectiveness of online ads, advertisers have introduced new advanced methods such as Cross-Device Tracking (CDT), to monitor users' browsing activity on multiple devices and screens, and deliver (re)targeted ads in the most appropriates screen. Unfortunately, this practice leads to greater privacy concerns for the end-user, not extensively studied before. In this thesis, we propose a novel methodology for detecting and measuring Cross-Device Tracking, and investigating the factors affecting its performance in a repeatable and systematic way. This new methodology is based on emulating realistic browsing activity of end-users from different devices, and thus triggering, detecting and classifying cross-device targeted ads. We implement this methodology in a novel CDT measurement framework that allows experimentation with multiple parallel devices, setups and experimental configurations. By employing our framework, we perform several critical experiments, and we are able not only to detect and measure CDT with average accuracy of 78-96%, but also to provide significant insights about the behavior of CDT entities and the impact on users' privacy. In fact, our modular and extensible design allows us to investigate Cross-Device Tracking in depth and propose new extensions to study the complex structure of the ad-ecosystem. Our findings can be useful for raising awareness and increasing transparency on tracking practices used by online advertisers.
Language English
Subject Data protection
Privacy in web
Ιδιωτικότητα στο διαδίκτυο
Προστασία δεδομένων
Issue date 2019-03-29
Collection   School/Department--School of Sciences and Engineering--Department of Computer Science--Post-graduate theses
  Type of Work--Post-graduate theses
Views 594

Digital Documents
No preview available

Download document
View document
Views : 30