Third-Party Web Tracking: Policy and Technology
| Title | Third-Party Web Tracking: Policy and Technology |
| Publication Type | Conference Paper |
| Year of Publication | 2012 |
| Authors | Mayer, J.R., Mitchell, J.C. |
| Conference Name | Security and Privacy (SP), 2012 IEEE Symposium on |
| Date Published | May |
| Keywords | advertising, analytics, Companies, data privacy, Do Not Track, Economics, fourth party Web measurement platform, History, privacy, security, social networking, third-party tracking, third-party Web sites, third-party Web tracking, user browsing activity tracking, Web innovation, Web pages, Web privacy, Web sites |
| Abstract | In the early days of the web, content was designed and hosted by a single person, group, or organization. No longer. Webpages are increasingly composed of content from myriad unrelated "third-party" websites in the business of advertising, analytics, social networking, and more. Third-party services have tremendous value: they support free content and facilitate web innovation. But third-party services come at a privacy cost: researchers, civil society organizations, and policymakers have increasingly called attention to how third parties can track a user's browsing activities across websites. This paper surveys the current policy debate surrounding third-party web tracking and explains the relevant technology. It also presents the FourthParty web measurement platform and studies we have conducted with it. Our aim is to inform researchers with essential background and tools for contributing to public understanding and policy debates about web tracking. |
| URL | http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6234427/ |
| DOI | 10.1109/SP.2012.47 |
| Citation Key | 6234427 |