TY - GEN

T1 - Privacy Lost in Online Education

T2 - Analysis of Web Tracking Evolution

AU - Su, Zhan

AU - Helles, Rasmus

AU - Al-Laith, Ali Mohammed Ali

AU - Veilahti, Antti Veikko Petteri

AU - Saxena, Akrati

AU - Simonsen, Jakob Grue

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Digital tracking poses a significant and multifaceted threat to personal privacy and integrity. Tracking techniques, such as the use of cookies and scripts, are widespread on the World Wide Web and have become more pervasive in the past decade. This paper focuses on the historical analysis of tracking practices specifically on educational websites, which require particular attention due to their often mandatory usage by users, including young individuals who may not adequately assess privacy implications. The paper proposes a framework for comparing tracking activities on a specific domain of websites by contrasting a sample of these sites with a control group consisting of sites with comparable traffic levels, but without a specific functional purpose. This comparative analysis allows us to evaluate the distinctive evolution of tracking on educational platforms against a standard benchmark. Our findings reveal that although educational websites initially demonstrated lower levels of tracking, their growth rate from 2012 to 2021 has exceeded that of the control group, resulting in higher levels of tracking at present. Through our investigation into the expansion of various types of trackers, we suggest that the accelerated growth of tracking on educational websites is partly attributable to the increased use of interactive features, facilitated by third-party services that enable the collection of user data. The paper concludes by proposing ways in which web developers can safeguard their design choices to mitigate user exposure to tracking.

AB - Digital tracking poses a significant and multifaceted threat to personal privacy and integrity. Tracking techniques, such as the use of cookies and scripts, are widespread on the World Wide Web and have become more pervasive in the past decade. This paper focuses on the historical analysis of tracking practices specifically on educational websites, which require particular attention due to their often mandatory usage by users, including young individuals who may not adequately assess privacy implications. The paper proposes a framework for comparing tracking activities on a specific domain of websites by contrasting a sample of these sites with a control group consisting of sites with comparable traffic levels, but without a specific functional purpose. This comparative analysis allows us to evaluate the distinctive evolution of tracking on educational platforms against a standard benchmark. Our findings reveal that although educational websites initially demonstrated lower levels of tracking, their growth rate from 2012 to 2021 has exceeded that of the control group, resulting in higher levels of tracking at present. Through our investigation into the expansion of various types of trackers, we suggest that the accelerated growth of tracking on educational websites is partly attributable to the increased use of interactive features, facilitated by third-party services that enable the collection of user data. The paper concludes by proposing ways in which web developers can safeguard their design choices to mitigate user exposure to tracking.

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-031-46664-9_30

DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-46664-9_30

M3 - Article in proceedings

SN - 9783031466632

VL - 2

T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science

SP - 440

EP - 455

BT - Advanced Data Mining and Applications

A2 - Yang, Xiaochun

A2 - Suhartanto, Heru

A2 - Wang, Guoren

A2 - Wang, Bin

A2 - Jiang, Jing

A2 - Li, Bing

A2 - Zhu, Huaijie

A2 - Cui, Ningning

PB - Springer, Cham

CY - Cham

ER -