Behavior Tracking

Dhaval Patel

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Objective

• Ad Network• Behavior Tracking– Browser Cookies– Flash Cookies– Web Beacons– Fingerprinting Devices

• Privacy Issues• Solutions• Conclusions

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Online Advertising

• Plays a critically important role in the internet world

• Major playing factor for profiting from the internet

• Developed alongside the growth of the medium itself

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Online Advertising

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Web History• 1993 GNN (Global Network Navigator) was the first commercial website

to sell a clickable ad• 1994 First internet banner, AT&T

• 1994 First commercial spam, a “Green Card Lottery”• 1995 Advertiser like MC and Zima were paying GNN $110 to $11,000

per week for ad spots• 1995 First Ad Server developed by FocaLink Media Services• 1996 DoubleClick, online ad-related services providing agency, created

a way to track banner ads and consumer behavior and help track the ROI

• 2008 Google acquired DoubleClick for US$3.1 Billion

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What is behavior tracking?

• Refers to the practice of tracking users across web sites in order to learn user interests and preferences

• Benefits– Advertisers targets a more focused audience

which increases the effectively– Consumer is “bothered” by more relevant and

interesting ads

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Factors of Behavior Tracking

• Number of days since last visit• Speed of behavior• Number of products viewed during last visit• Number of pages viewed• Supplying personal information• Number of days since last purchase• Number of past purchases

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Web Tracking

• Track user behavior as they move from site to site

• types of tracking method:– Browser Cookies– Flash Cookies– Beacons– Apps– IP Address Tracking

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Browser Cookies

• What is a cookie?– Information that a site saves to your computer

using your web browser– Record your browsing activities• Pages and content you looked at• When you visited• What you searched• You clicked on an ad

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Browser Cookies• First Party vs Third Party Cookies• First party cookies

– Place by a site when you visit it– Make your experience on the web more efficient– For example:

• Items in your shopping cart• Log-in name• Preference• Game scores• Sessions

• Third party cookies– Place by someone other than the site you are on– Include an advertising network or a company that helps deliver the ads you see– Deliver ads tailored to your interests

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Browser Cookies• Transient vs. Persistent Cookies• Transient Cookies

– Jobs is to help “sessionize” your experience on a website– “set” when we visit the site, it disappears when we leave

• Persistent Cookies– Set the first time we visit the website– It will remain there for the duration that the website determines– Example

• Analytics cookies are typically 18 months• Other can be 18 months to 18 years

– Help identify a unique browser to our website, closest thing to tracking a “person”/”unique visitor”

– Contain not always a Personally Identifiable Information (PII) data.• Random string of numbers or alphabets that only the company who set the cookie can

read.

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DoubleClick Tracking

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Adchoice Example

• Cleared all cookies• Visit USPS.com• Visit AARP.com• Visit Allstate.com• Three website that are used to track user

preference by Adchoice

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Adchoice Example

• Visit website that have banner hosted for Adchoice including– Yahoo.com– msn.com

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Flash Cookies

• Tougher version of tracking cookie• Also called super cookie or Evercookie• It respawn regular cookies that were deleted

and recreate user profile.• Supercookies are harder to locate and delete– Stored in different location then regular cookie– Browser does not know the location• Since it is a plug-in

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Web Beacons

• reported by Colorado-based Privacy Foundation for monitoring Internet users– Used by advertising circles, but not publicized to internet users

• small graphic image placed in web pages or email messages– Facilitate third party tracking of users and collection of

statistics– 1-pixel x 1-pixel transparent GIF

• Invisible

– To see the web beacon, we view the source of HTML page or email message

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Web Beacons

• Single 1x1 image fetched from DoubleClick• Bugs alerts Doubleclick to each individuals that

view the website quicken.com• Double click has systems for monitoring

individuals who view DoubleClick advertisements• This web beacon allow Intuit to use DoubleClick

monitoring system without the need to first show a banner advertisement

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Web Beacons

• This beacon fetches image from media.preferences.com server

• Sends unique user identification• Similar to what is found in a cookie

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Web Beacons

• Does not need to a 1x1 pixel graphics.• Can be any other content that is pulled from a

third-party we server– Can be used to monitor its user

• Impact privacy by introducing a third party into a consumer web site relationship

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Uses of Web Bugs• According to Privacy Foundataion, companies use web bugs to accomplish the

following tasks:– Gather viewing and usage statistics for a particular page. – Correlate usage statistics between multiple web sites.– Profile users of a web site by gender, age, Zip code, and other demographics.– Transfer personally identifiable information from the web site directly to an Internet

marketing company. This transfer would be accomplished with a web bug URL that contains the personal information that the company wishes to transfer.

– Transfer search strings from a search engine to a marketing company.– Verify the statistics reported by a banner advertising company, to gauge the

effectiveness of different banner advertisements.– Have third-party providers prepare web usage statistics for web sites that do not have

the technical capability to prepare their own statistics.– Check if email messages are actually read, and, if they are read, to see if they are

forwarded.– Detect copyright infrignement

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Fingerprinting Devices

• Take combinations of unique properties of the computer– Browser– Operating system– Screen resolution– Plug-ins installed

• Create an algorithm to make the best possible guess about the user without ever installing anything on the computer

• BlueCava are currently implementing this algorithm

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ISP Tracking

• All information must first pass through the providers computers

• ISP can determine the web sites that user frequent or articles that were viewed

• By tracking this information, Internet provider can tell if its users are intereseted in boats or car, care about fashion or medical illness