Related papers: Ad-blocking: A Study on Performance, Privacy and C…
Ad and tracking blocking extensions are popular tools for improving web performance, privacy and aesthetics. Content blocking extensions typically rely on filter lists to decide whether a web request is associated with tracking or…
Privacy regulations have led to many websites showing cookie banners to their users. Usually, cookie banners present the user with the option to "accept" or "reject" cookies. Recently, a new form of paywall-like cookie banner has taken hold…
Web browsers have been used widely by users to conduct various online activities, such as information seeking or online shopping. To improve user experience and extend the functionality of browsers, practitioners provide mechanisms to allow…
Modern web browsers are incredibly complex, with millions of lines of code and over one thousand JavaScript functions and properties available to website authors. This work investigates how these browser features are used on the modern,…
People are becoming increasingly concerned with their online privacy, especially with how advertising companies track them across websites (a practice called cross-site tracking), as reconstructing a user's browser history can reveal…
Ad targeting is getting more powerful with introduction of new tools, such as Custom Audiences, behavioral targeting, and Audience Insights. Although this is beneficial for businesses as it enables people to receive more relevant…
While JavaScript established itself as a cornerstone of the modern web, it also constitutes a major tracking and security vector, thus raising critical privacy and security concerns. In this context, some browser extensions propose to…
Millions of web users directly depend on ad and tracker blocking tools to protect their privacy. However, existing ad and tracker blockers fall short because of their reliance on trivially susceptible advertising and tracking content. In…
Practical news feed platforms generate a hybrid list of news articles and advertising items (e.g., products, services, or information) and many platforms optimize the position of news articles and advertisements independently. However, they…
On today's Web, users trade access to their private data for content and services. Advertising sustains the business model of many websites and applications. Efficient and successful advertising relies on predicting users' actions and…
Privacy has been a major concern for everybody over the internet. Governments across the globe have given their views on how the internet space can be managed effectively so that there is some control on the flow of confidential information…
Context: In-app advertising is the primary source of revenue for many mobile apps. The cost of advertising (ad cost) is non-negligible for app developers to ensure a good user experience and continuous profits. Previous studies mainly focus…
Retargeting ads are increasingly prevalent on the Internet as their effectiveness has been shown to outperform conventional targeted ads. Retargeting ads are not only based on users' interests, but also on their intents, i.e. commercial…
Website accessibility is essential for inclusiveness and regulatory compliance. Although third-party advertisements (ads) are a vital revenue source for free web services, they introduce significant accessibility challenges. Leasing a…
Regulators and browsers increasingly restrict user tracking to protect users' privacy online. In two large-scale empirical studies, we study the economic implications for publishers relying on selling advertising space to finance their…
Prestigious news publishers, and more recently, Meta, have begun to request that users pay for privacy. Specifically, users receive a notification banner, referred to as a pay-or-tracking wall, that requires them to (i) pay money to avoid…
Browser Extensions (often called plugins or addons) are small pieces of code that let developers add additional functionality to the browser. However, with extensions comes a security price: the user must trust the developer. We look at…
Google's recent update to the manifest file for Chrome browser extensions, transitioning from manifest version 2 (MV2) to manifest version 3 (MV3), has raised concerns among users and ad blocker providers, who worry that the new…
Third-party web cookies are often used for privacy-invasive behavior tracking. Partly due to privacy concerns, browser vendors have started to block all third-party cookies in recent years. To understand the effects of such third-party…
Most of the online news media outlets rely heavily on the revenues generated from the clicks made by their readers, and due to the presence of numerous such outlets, they need to compete with each other for reader attention. To attract the…