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Big data has become a great asset for many organizations, promising improved operations and new business opportunities. However, big data has increased access to sensitive information that when processed can directly jeopardize the privacy…
Recent application programming interface (API) restrictions on major social media platforms challenge compliance with the EU Digital Services Act [20], which mandates data access for algorithmic transparency. We develop a structured audit…
In-app advertising closely relates to app revenue. Reckless ad integration could adversely impact app reliability and user experience, leading to loss of income. It is very challenging to balance the ad revenue and user experience for app…
Privacy, security, and accessibility, like ethical concerns in mobile applications (a.k.a. apps), commonly subsumed under non-functional requirements, are generally reported by users through app reviews available in app stores. However,…
The Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF), developed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe, provides a de facto standard for requesting, recording, and managing user consent from European end-users. This framework has…
Since its introduction in 2006, differential privacy has emerged as a predominant statistical tool for quantifying data privacy in academic works. Yet despite the plethora of research and open-source utilities that have accompanied its…
Tracking is a highly privacy-invasive data collection practice that has been ubiquitous in mobile apps for many years due to its role in supporting advertising-based revenue models. In response, Apple introduced two significant changes with…
This paper determines whether the two core data protection principles of data minimisation and purpose limitation can be meaningfully implemented in data-driven systems. While contemporary data processing practices appear to stand at odds…
The transparency and privacy behavior of mobile browsers has remained widely unexplored by the research community. In fact, as opposed to regular Android apps, mobile browsers may present contradicting privacy behaviors. On the one end,…
Websites use third-party ads and tracking services to deliver targeted ads and collect information about users that visit them. These services put users' privacy at risk, and that is why users' demand for blocking these services is growing.…
Since there is, in principle, no reason why third parties should not pay individuals for the use of their data, we introduce a realistic market that would allow these payments to be made while taking into account the privacy attitude of the…
Online advertising is a cornerstone of the Internet ecosystem, with advertising measurement playing a crucial role in optimizing efficiency. Ad measurement entails attributing desired behaviors, such as purchases, to ad exposures across…
This study explores the impact of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), introduced on May 25th, 2018, on online trackers, vital elements in the online advertising ecosystem. Using a difference-in-differences approach with a…
Training generative machine learning models to produce synthetic tabular data has become a popular approach for enhancing privacy in data sharing. As this typically involves processing sensitive personal information, releasing either the…
With the rapid increase in online interactions, concerns over data privacy and transparency of data processing practices have become more pronounced. While regulations like the GDPR have driven the widespread adoption of cookie banners in…
Third-party tracking, the collection and sharing of behavioural data about individuals, is a significant and ubiquitous privacy threat in mobile apps. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was introduced in 2018 to protect…
The exponential growth of collected, processed, and shared data has given rise to concerns about individuals' privacy. Consequently, various laws and regulations have been established to oversee how organizations handle and safeguard data.…
Account sharing is common in subscription services and is now extending to generative AI platforms, which are still primarily designed for individual use. Sharing often requires workarounds that create new tensions. This study examines how…
Online services such as web search and e-commerce applications typically rely on the collection of data about users, including details of their activities on the web. Such personal data is used to enhance the quality of service via…
To protect users' privacy, legislators have regulated the usage of tracking technologies, mandating the acquisition of users' consent before collecting data. Consequently, websites started showing more and more consent management modules --…