OmniCrawl: Comprehensive Measurement of Web Tracking With Real Desktop and Mobile Browsers
OmniCrawl: Comprehensive Measurement of Web Tracking With Real Desktop and Mobile Browsers
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DOI：
10.2478/popets-2022-0012
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发表时间：
2021-11
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Darion Cassel;Su-Chin Lin;Alessio Buraggina;William Wang;Andrew Zhang;Lujo Bauer;H. Hsiao;Limin Jia;Timothy Libert
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文献类型：
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作者：
Darion Cassel;Su-Chin Lin;Alessio Buraggina;William Wang;Andrew Zhang;Lujo Bauer;H. Hsiao;Limin Jia;Timothy Libert
摘要现在，超过一半的网站访问都是在移动的浏览器中进行的，但大多数网络隐私研究都采用桌面浏览器的Vantage，使用模拟的移动的浏览器，或者只关注单个移动的浏览器。在本文中，我们提出了一个全面的网络跟踪测量研究移动的浏览器和隐私为重点的移动的浏览器。我们的研究利用了一种新的网络测量基础设施OmniCrawl，我们开发它来驱动位于两大洲的台式计算机和智能手机上的浏览器。我们同时使用42种不同的非仿真浏览器捕获Web跟踪测量。我们发现，移动的浏览器的第三方广告和跟踪生态系统与桌面浏览器的生态系统比之前的研究结果更相似。我们研究了以隐私为中心的浏览器，发现它们的保护措施差异很大，一般来说，对排名较低的网站的保护较少。我们的研究结果还表明，Web测量研究所做的常见方法选择，例如使用模拟的移动的浏览器和Selenium，可能会导致网站行为偏离实际用户体验。
Abstract Over half of all visits to websites now take place in a mobile browser, yet the majority of web privacy studies take the vantage point of desktop browsers, use emulated mobile browsers, or focus on just a single mobile browser instead. In this paper, we present a comprehensive web-tracking measurement study on mobile browsers and privacy-focused mobile browsers. Our study leverages a new web measurement infrastructure, OmniCrawl, which we develop to drive browsers on desktop computers and smartphones located on two continents. We capture web tracking measurements using 42 different non-emulated browsers simultaneously. We find that the third-party advertising and tracking ecosystem of mobile browsers is more similar to that of desktop browsers than previous findings suggested. We study privacy-focused browsers and find their protections differ significantly and in general are less for lower-ranked sites. Our findings also show that common methodological choices made by web measurement studies, such as the use of emulated mobile browsers and Selenium, can lead to website behavior that deviates from what actual users experience.