Characterizing the Use of Browser-Based Blocking Extensions To Prevent Online Tracking
Characterizing the Use of Browser-Based Blocking Extensions To Prevent Online Tracking
复制标题
描述使用基于浏览器的阻止扩展来防止在线跟踪的特征
DOI：
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发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
M. Chetty
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Arunesh Mathur;Jessica Vitak;Arvind Narayanan;M. Chetty
基于浏览器的拦截扩展，如广告拦截器和跟踪拦截器，有允许用户抵制在线跟踪的规定。虽然先前的研究表明这些扩展存在一些可用性问题，但我们对现实世界中阻止扩展的使用知之甚少，为什么用户选择采用这些扩展，以及这些扩展如何有效地保护用户免受在线跟踪。为了研究这些问题，我们进行了两次在线调查，检查了阻止扩展的用户和非用户。我们有三个主要发现。首先，我们表明这些扩展的用户和非用户都只对在线跟踪有基本的了解，并且参与者的心理模型与他们采用这些扩展的行为只有微弱的相关性。其次，我们发现每种类型的阻塞扩展都有与之相关的特定主要用途。最后，我们发现用户报告说扩展很少破坏网站。然而，当网站崩溃时，用户只有在信任并熟悉该网站的情况下才会禁用他们的扩展。根据我们的研究结果，我们提出了设计更好的保护措施以防止在线跟踪的建议，并概述了未来工作的方向。
Browser-based blocking extensions such as Ad blockers and Tracker blockers have provisions that allow users to counter online tracking. While prior research has shown that these extensions suffer from several usability issues, we know little about real world blocking extension use, why users choose to adopt these extensions, and how effectively these extensions protect users against online tracking. To study these questions, we conducted two online surveys examining both users and non-users of blocking extensions. We have three main findings. First, we show both users and non-users of these extensions only possess a basic understanding of online tracking, and that participants’ mental models only weakly correlate with their behavior to adopt these extensions. Second, we find that that each type of blocking extension has a specific primary use associated with it. Finally, we find that users report that extensions only rarely break websites. However when websites break, users only disable their extensions if they trust and are familiar with the website. Based on our findings, we make recommendations for designing better protections against online tracking and outline directions for future work.