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Social media platforms have been trying to be more transparent about the political ads they run on their platforms, because the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed that political campaigns are using social media on a large scale. One such…
Numerous surveys have shown that Web users are concerned about the loss of privacy associated with online tracking. Alarmingly, these surveys also reveal that people are also unaware of the amount of data sharing that occurs between ad…
Facebook pages offer an easy way to reach out to a very large audience as they can easily be promoted using Facebook's advertising platform. Recently, the number of likes of a Facebook page has become a measure of its popularity and…
To partly address people's concerns over web tracking, Google has created the Ad Settings webpage to provide information about and some choice over the profiles Google creates on users. We present AdFisher, an automated tool that explores…
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…
Digital commerce thrives on advertising, with many of the largest technology companies relying on it as a significant source of revenue. However, in the context of information-seeking behavior, such as search, advertising may degrade the…
The reports of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections brought into the center of public attention concerns related to the ability of foreign actors to increase social discord and take advantage of personal user data for…
Online advertising is the major source of income for a large portion of Internet Services. There exists a body of literature aiming at optimizing ads engagement, understanding the privacy and ethical implications of online advertising, etc.…
Social media platforms newsfeeds are generated by AI algorithms, which select and order posts based on user data. However, users are often unaware of what data is collected and employed for this aim, neither can they control it. To open up…
Third-party services form an integral part of the mobile ecosystem: they allow app developers to add features such as performance analytics and social network integration, and to monetize their apps by enabling user tracking and targeted ad…
Over the past years, advertisement companies have used various tracking methods to persistently track users across the web. Such tracking methods usually include first and third-party cookies, cookie synchronization, as well as a variety of…
Targeted advertising remains an important part of the free web browsing experience, where advertisers' targeting and personalization algorithms together find the most relevant audience for millions of ads every day. However, given the wide…
Online advertising on platforms such as Google or Facebook has become an indispensable outreach tool, including for applications where it is desirable to engage different demographics in an equitable fashion, such as hiring, housing, civic…
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…
User demand for blocking advertising and tracking online is large and growing. Existing tools, both deployed and described in research, have proven useful, but lack either the completeness or robustness needed for a general solution.…
The rise of social media has enabled the widespread propagation of fake news, text that is published with an intent to spread misinformation and sway beliefs. Rapidly detecting fake news, especially as new events arise, is important to…
The rise of mobile apps has brought greater convenience and customization for users. However, many apps use analytics services to collect a wide range of user interaction data purportedly to improve their service, while presenting app users…
Recent years have seen a new form of advertisement campaigns emerge: those involving so-called social media influencers. These influencers accept money in return for promoting products via their social media feeds. Although this constitutes…
Given the massive market of advertising and the sharply increasing online multimedia content (such as videos), it is now fashionable to promote advertisements (ads) together with the multimedia content. It is exhausted to find relevant ads…
Targeted advertising has transformed the marketing landscape for a wide variety of businesses, by creating new opportunities for advertisers to reach prospective customers by delivering personalised ads, using an infrastructure of a number…