Web Tracking - A Literature Review on the State of Research

Web tracking seems to become ubiquitous in online business and leads to increased privacy concerns of users. This paper provides an overview over the current state of the art of web-tracking research, aiming to reveal the relevance and methodologies of this research area and creates a foundation for future work. In particular, this study addresses the following research questions: What methods are followed? What results have been achieved so far? What are potential future research areas? For these goals, a structured literature review based upon an established methodological framework is conducted. The identified articles are investigated with respect to the applied research methodologies and the aspects of web tracking they emphasize

Data protection in the age of Big Data: legal challenges and responses in the context of online behavioural advertising

This thesis addresses the question of how data protection law should respond to the challenges arising from the ever-increasing prevalence of big data. The investigation is conducted with the case study of online behavioural advertising (OBA) and within the EU data protection legal framework, especially the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It is argued that data protection law should respond to the big data challenges by leveraging the regulatory options that are either already in place in the current legal regime or potentially available to policymakers. With the highly complex, powerful and opaque OBA network, in both technical and economic terms, the use of big data may pose fundamental threats to certain individualistic, collective or societal values. Despite a limited number of economic benefits such as free access to online services and the growth of the digital market, the latent risks of OBA call for an effective regulatory regime on big data. While the EU’s GDPR represents the latest and most comprehensive legal framework regulating the use of personal data, it has still fallen short on certain important aspects. The regulatory model characterised by individualised consent and the necessity test remains insufficient in fully protecting data subjects as autonomous persons, consumers and citizens in the context of OBA. There is thus a pressing need for policymakers to review their regulatory toolbox in the light of the potential threats. On the one hand, it is necessary to reconsider the possibilities to blacklist or whitelist certain data uses with mechanisms that are either in place in the legal framework or can be introduced additionally. On the other hand, it is also necessary to realise the full range of policy options that can be adopted to assist individuals in making informed decisions in the age of big data

Investigating privacy perceptions, attitudes and behaviours of the inflammatory bowel disease online health communities

During their lifetime, people living with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) may require social support. Over the past 3 decades the internet has provided new opportunities for people living with chronic health conditions to meet virtually to both seek and receive empathetic support from the comfort of their own homes. Furthermore, the prevalence of smart mobile devices and social media platforms has provided individuals with easy to reach, on the go social support to meet their needs. Online support has been recognised as having additional benefits to face to-face support, such as how the asynchronous nature of online communications affords individuals to browse a rich history of previous posts. However, self-disclosed information on the internet is subject to privacy risks. In Law and Sociology, health information is considered to be ‘sensitive’ data; however, there are thousands of individuals living with IBD sharing intimate health information on social media platforms. This thesis explores how people living with IBD perceive their privacy on social media through a dual lens of social privacy and information privacy. A mixed-methods approach was adopted across 3 empirical studies to examine the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours of people living with IBD and using social media to participate in online health communities. The first study explored how people living with IBD use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to engage with online health communities through 38 semi-structured interviews. The findings indicate that each of the platforms shared similar functionality which in turn generally afforded similar therapeutic outcomes. The analysis found evidence to suggest that people’s experiences of each platform was not exclusively as a result of the technical functions of each platform but were combined with their motivations and their previous social interactions. Significantly, this study also drew a distinction in the ways in which people perceive privacy on social media; demonstrating clear understandings of their social privacy boundaries and the actions they take to reduce privacy violations. Conversely, participants demonstrated a low awareness of how their data is collected and used by social media platforms, thus making it difficult for individuals to identify information privacy risks. The second study involved community leaders participating in focus groups to discuss the privacy challenges as well as identifying possible prototypes to support the digital well-being of potentially vulnerable people. Finding that an education-driven approach would be a suitable short-term option to improve people’s understanding, an intervention was developed through Patient and Public Involvement for the third study. The final study involved pre and post web-surveys to digital interventions to assess people’s attitudes towards learning more about online privacy, as well as its impacts on the IBD community. Taken together, this thesis presents new evidence to suggest how individuals use different social media platforms. It also demonstrates how social privacy and information privacy are thought and acted upon in different ways. However, there is some evidence to suggest that over the course of data collection for this PhD 4 (2017-2020) there are changing attitudes towards information privacy and the ways in which people’s health information is used by social media platforms

Investigating privacy perceptions, attitudes and behaviours of the inflammatory bowel disease online health communities

During their lifetime, people living with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) may require social support. Over the past 3 decades the internet has provided new opportunities for people living with chronic health conditions to meet virtually to both seek and receive empathetic support from the comfort of their own homes. Furthermore, the prevalence of smart mobile devices and social media platforms has provided individuals with easy to reach, on the go social support to meet their needs. Online support has been recognised as having additional benefits to face to-face support, such as how the asynchronous nature of online communications affords individuals to browse a rich history of previous posts. However, self-disclosed information on the internet is subject to privacy risks. In Law and Sociology, health information is considered to be ‘sensitive’ data; however, there are thousands of individuals living with IBD sharing intimate health information on social media platforms. This thesis explores how people living with IBD perceive their privacy on social media through a dual lens of social privacy and information privacy. A mixed-methods approach was adopted across 3 empirical studies to examine the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours of people living with IBD and using social media to participate in online health communities. The first study explored how people living with IBD use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to engage with online health communities through 38 semi-structured interviews. The findings indicate that each of the platforms shared similar functionality which in turn generally afforded similar therapeutic outcomes. The analysis found evidence to suggest that people’s experiences of each platform was not exclusively as a result of the technical functions of each platform but were combined with their motivations and their previous social interactions. Significantly, this study also drew a distinction in the ways in which people perceive privacy on social media; demonstrating clear understandings of their social privacy boundaries and the actions they take to reduce privacy violations. Conversely, participants demonstrated a low awareness of how their data is collected and used by social media platforms, thus making it difficult for individuals to identify information privacy risks. The second study involved community leaders participating in focus groups to discuss the privacy challenges as well as identifying possible prototypes to support the digital well-being of potentially vulnerable people. Finding that an education-driven approach would be a suitable short-term option to improve people’s understanding, an intervention was developed through Patient and Public Involvement for the third study. The final study involved pre and post web-surveys to digital interventions to assess people’s attitudes towards learning more about online privacy, as well as its impacts on the IBD community. Taken together, this thesis presents new evidence to suggest how individuals use different social media platforms. It also demonstrates how social privacy and information privacy are thought and acted upon in different ways. However, there is some evidence to suggest that over the course of data collection for this PhD 4 (2017-2020) there are changing attitudes towards information privacy and the ways in which people’s health information is used by social media platforms

Grundlagen der Informationswissenschaft

Die 7. Ausgabe der "Grundlagen der praktischen Information und Dokumentation" (Erstausgabe 1972) heißt jetzt: „Grundlagen der Informationswissenschaft". Der Bezug zur Praxis und zur Ausbildung bleibt erhalten, aber der neue Titel trägt dem Rechnung, dass die wissenschaftliche theoretische Absicherung für alle Bereiche von Wissen und Information, nicht nur in der Fachinformation, sondern auch in den Informationsdiensten des Internet immer wichtiger wird. Für die Grundlagen sind 73 Artikel in 6 Hauptkapiteln vorgesehen. Viele Themen werden zum ersten Mal behandelt, z.B. Information und Emotion, Informationelle Selbstbestimmung, Informationspathologien. Alle Beiträge sind neu verfasst