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This study examines inconsistencies in the brand safety classifications of online news articles by analyzing ratings from three leading brand safety providers, DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science, and Oracle. We focus on news content because…
Free content websites that provide free books, music, games, movies, etc., have existed on the Internet for many years. While it is a common belief that such websites might be different from premium websites providing the same content…
Internet advertising is a fast growing business which has proved to be significantly important in digital economics. It is vitally important for both web search engines and online content providers and publishers because web advertising…
Advertisement drives the economy of the mobile app ecosystem. As a key component in the mobile ad business model, mobile ad content has been overlooked by the research community, which poses a number of threats, e.g., propagating malware…
Whistleblower laws protect individuals who inform the public or an authority about governmental or corporate misconduct. Despite these laws, whistleblowers frequently risk reprisals and sites such as WikiLeaks emerged to provide a level of…
During disasters, crisis, and emergencies the public relies on online services provided by official authorities to receive timely alerts, trustworthy information, and access to relief programs. It is therefore crucial for the authorities to…
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a core Internet service that translates domain names into IP addresses. It is a distributed database and protocol with many known weaknesses that subject to countless attacks including spoofing attacks,…
How, in 20 short years, did we go from the promise of the internet to democratize access to knowledge and make the world more understanding and enlightened, to the litany of daily horrors that is today's internet? We are awash in…
Toll scams involve criminals registering fake domains that pretend to be legitimate transportation agencies to trick users into making fraudulent payments. Although these scams are rapidly increasing and causing significant harm, they have…
Knowledge about the graph structure of the Web is important for understanding this complex socio-technical system and for devising proper policies supporting its future development. Knowledge about the differences between clean and…
Advertising is a primary means for revenue generation for millions of websites and smartphone apps (publishers). Naturally, a fraction of publishers abuse the ad-network to systematically defraud advertisers of their money. Defenses have…
Providing security for information is highly critical in the current era with devices enabled with smart technology, where assuming a day without the internet is highly impossible. Fast internet at a cheaper price, not only made…
Online advertising has become the backbone of the Internet economy by revolutionizing business marketing. It provides a simple and efficient way for advertisers to display their advertisements to specific individual users, and over the last…
Perceptual ad-blocking is a novel approach that detects online advertisements based on their visual content. Compared to traditional filter lists, the use of perceptual signals is believed to be less prone to an arms race with web…
We present our results on analyzing and understanding the behavior and security of various metaverse platforms incorporating cryptocurrencies. We obtained the top metaverse coins with a capitalization of at least 25 million US dollars and…
What does the Digital Services Act (DSA) mean for online advertising? We describe and analyse the DSA rules that are most relevant for online advertising and adtech (advertising technology). We also highlight to what extent the DSA's…
Cryptojacking is the permissionless use of a target device to covertly mine cryptocurrencies. With cryptojacking, attackers use malicious JavaScript codes to force web browsers into solving proof-of-work puzzles, thus making money by…
Machine learning (ML) malware detectors rely heavily on crowd-sourced AntiVirus (AV) labels, with platforms like VirusTotal serving as a trusted source of malware annotations. But what if attackers could manipulate these labels to classify…
On the modern web, trackers and advertisers frequently construct and monetize users' detailed behavioral profiles without consent. Despite various studies on web tracking mechanisms and advertisements, there has been no rigorous study…
Websites employ third-party ads and tracking services leveraging cookies and JavaScript code, to deliver ads and track users' behavior, causing privacy concerns. To limit online tracking and block advertisements, several ad-blocking (black)…