SoK: Advances and Open Problems in Web Tracking

Web tracking is a pervasive and opaque practice that enables personalized advertising, retargeting, and conversion tracking. Over time, it has evolved into a sophisticated and invasive ecosystem, employing increasingly complex techniques to monitor and profile users across the web. The research...

Google now allows digital fingerprinting of its users

In the ongoing saga that is Google’s struggle to replace tracking cookies, we have entered a new phase. But whether that’s good news is another matter. For years, Google has been saying it will phase out the third-party tracking cookies that power much of its advertising business online, proposin...

Facebook users sue Meta for allegedly building "secret workaround" to Apple privacy safeguards

Last week, two Facebook users filed a class-action complaint against Meta in San Francisco's federal court, alleging the company built a "secret workaround" to Apple's safeguards that protect iPhone users from tracking. Facebook circumvents Apple's privacy rules by opening in-app browsers within...

ICO challenges adtech to step up privacy protection

The UK Information Commissioners Office ICO wants the advertising industry to come up with new initiatives that address the risks of adtech, and take account of data protection requirements from the outset. The ICO is an independent body set up to uphold information rights. The technology that is...

Android Ad-Fraud Scheme

BuzzFeed is reporting on a scheme where fraudsters buy legitimate Android apps, track users' behavior in order to mimic it in a way that evades bot detectors, and then uses bots to perpetuate an ad-fraud scheme. After being provided with a list of the apps and websites connected to the scheme,...

Senate Committee to Discuss Do Not Track at Key Hearing

The dram surrounding the Do Not Track specification and its implementation by browser manufacturers is set to continue on Thursday when the Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing to discuss whether the proposed specification is strong enough or has been weakened by the digital advertising...