Examining Privacy Practices of Websites Using Large Scale Data

Protecting end-users privacy and building trust are the two most important factors needed to support the growth of e-Commerce. The increased dependence on the Internet for a wide variety of daily transactions causes a corresponding loss in privacy for many users, as virtually all websites collect data from users directly or indirectly while performing business with them. In this thesis we have used a web crawler named iWatch which serves as an instrument to collect basic statistics on the state of privacy, security, and data-collection practices on the web. We have looked at several interesting practices, and ways of examining the data.

Autorentext

Dan (Chandan) Sarkar is a fourth year PhD student in the department of Media and Information Studies at Michigan State University. Mr. Sarkar's primary research interest is human centric computing, Social Collaboration using Games and Mediated Communication, and socio-technical system driven online communities.