Related papers: Government mandated blocking of foreign Web conten…
Under increasing scrutiny, many web companies now offer bespoke mechanisms allowing any third party to file complaints (e.g., requesting the de-listing of a URL from a search engine). While this self-regulation might be a valuable web…
Modern web applications serve large amounts of sensitive user data, access to which is typically governed by data-access policies. Enforcing such policies is crucial to preventing improper data access, and prior work has proposed many…
The recently introduced General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires that when obtaining information online that could be used to identify individuals, their consents must be obtained. Among other things, this affects many common…
The openness and accessibility of the Web has contributed greatly to its worldwide adoption. Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) are used for resource identification on the Web. A resource on the Web can be described in many ways, which…
Nowadays, the Internet is indispensable when it comes to information dissemination. People rely on the Internet to inform themselves on current news events, as well as to verify facts. We, as a community, are quickly approaching an…
The battle against the spread of misinformation on the Internet is a daunting task faced by modern society. Fake news content is primarily distributed through digital platforms, with websites dedicated to producing and disseminating such…
This paper explores the legal implications of violating "robots.txt", a technical standard widely used by webmasters to communicate restrictions on automated access to website content. Although historically regarded as a voluntary…
Despite stringent data protection regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other country-specific regulations, many websites continue to use cookies to track user…
Search engines, such as Google, have a considerable impact on society. Therefore, undesirable consequences, such as retrieving incorrect search results, pose a risk to users. Although previous research has reported the adverse outcomes of…
Recent initiatives known as Future Internet Architectures (FIAs) seek to redesign the Internet to improve performance, scalability, and security. However, some governments perceive Internet access as a threat to their political standing and…
The Internet and social media have transformed news availability and accessibility, reshaping information consumption and production. However, they can also facilitate the rapid spread of misinformation, posing significant societal…
One of the burning problems lately in Japan has been cyber-bullying, or slandering and bullying people online. The problem has been especially noticed on unofficial Web sites of Japanese schools. Volunteers consisting of school personnel…
Cookie banners are devices implemented by websites to allow users to manage their privacy settings with respect to the use of cookies. They are part of a user's daily web browsing experience since legislation in Europe requires websites to…
Starting with the Berlin declaration in 2003, Open Access (OA) publishing has established a new era of scholarly communication due to the unrestricted electronic access to peer reviewed publications. OA offers a number of benefits like e.g.…
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 --…
Understanding web co-location is essential for various reasons. For instance, it can help one to assess the collateral damage that denial-of-service attacks or IP-based blocking can cause to the availability of co-located web sites.…
Over the past decade, we have witnessed the rise of misinformation on the Internet, with online users constantly falling victims of fake news. A multitude of past studies have analyzed fake news diffusion mechanics and detection and…
This article discusses a problem that has received scant attention in literature: microtargeted propaganda by foreign actors. Microtargeting involves collecting information about people, and using that information to show them targeted…
Web cookies are ubiquitously used to track and profile the behavior of users. Although there is a solid empirical foundation for understanding the use of cookies in the global world wide web, thus far, limited attention has been devoted for…
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.…