INTERNET PRIVACY RESEARCH
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Online disclosure, tracking, privacy behavior, and targeted advertising
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WEB TRACKING
Acar, G., Eubank, C., Englehardt, S., Juarez, M., Narayanan, A., & Díaz, C. (2014). The Web Never
Forgets: Persistent tracking mechanisms in the wild. In Proceedings of the 2014 ACM SIGSAC
Conference on Computer and Communications Security (pp. 674-689). Association for Computing
Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/2660267.2660347
ANNOTATION
Acar and colleagues investigate persistent web-tracking techniques including canvas fingerprinting,
evercookies, and cookie syncing. Their large-scale measurement study examines how these
mechanisms operate across real websites and how they can undermine attempts by users to clear or
control tracking information. The paper is useful for internet-privacy research because it provides
direct technical evidence that privacy can be affected by mechanisms users may not see during
ordinary browsing. It also shows why studying online privacy requires attention to browser
technology and third-party data flows, not only to posted privacy statements.
PRIVACY + HUMAN
BEHAVIOR
Acquisti, A., Brandimarte, L., & Loewenstein, G. (2015). Privacy and human behavior in the age of
information. Science, 347(6221), 509-514. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa1465
ANNOTATION
Acquisti, Brandimarte, and Loewenstein review research on how people make privacy decisions
when information can be collected and exchanged at very low cost. They examine uncertainty,
context, timing, cognitive biases, and the changing value people assign to information in different
situations. The review is useful because it explains why online privacy behavior can appear
inconsistent without assuming that users simply do not care about privacy. For an internet-privacy
project, it provides a strong behavioral foundation that complements technical studies of tracking
and empirical studies of disclosure.
BEHAVIORAL ADVERTISING
Boerman, S. C., Kruikemeier, S., & Zuiderveen Borgesius, F. J. (2017). Online behavioral advertising: A
literature review and research agenda. Journal of Advertising, 46(3), 363-376.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2017.1339368
ANNOTATION
Boerman, Kruikemeier, and Zuiderveen Borgesius review empirical research on online behavioral
advertising, in which information about people's online activity is used to personalize and target
advertisements. The review develops a framework that separates advertiser-controlled factors from
consumer knowledge, perceptions, and characteristics, then connects these factors to privacy
responses and advertising outcomes. It is useful for internet-privacy research because behavioral
advertising is one of the main settings in which browsing data becomes economically valuable. The
article also identifies limits in transparency approaches and shows why users may have difficulty
making informed privacy decisions when data practices are complex.
