Online advertising: analysis of privacy threats and protection approaches

Online advertising, the pillar of the “free” content on the Web, has revolutionized the marketing business in recent years by creating a myriad of new opportunities for advertisers to reach potential customers. The current advertising model builds upon an intricate infrastructure composed of a variety of intermediary entities and technologies whose main aim is to deliver personalized ads. For this purpose, a wealth of user data is collected, aggregated, processed and traded behind the scenes at an unprecedented rate. Despite the enormous value of online advertising, however, the intrusiveness and ubiquity of these practices prompt serious privacy concerns. This article surveys the online advertising infrastructure and its supporting technologies, and presents a thorough overview of the underlying privacy risks and the solutions that may mitigate them. We first analyze the threats and potential privacy attackers in this scenario of online advertising. In particular, we examine the main components of the advertising infrastructure in terms of tracking capabilities, data collection, aggregation level and privacy risk, and overview the tracking and data-sharing technologies employed by these components. Then, we conduct a comprehensive survey of the most relevant privacy mechanisms, and classify and compare them on the basis of their privacy guarantees and impact on the Web.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Characterizing Location-based Mobile Tracking in Mobile Ad Networks

Mobile apps nowadays are often packaged with third-party ad libraries to monetize user data

Predicting mobile advertising response using consumer colocation networks

Building on results from economics and consumer behavior, the authors theorize that consumers' movement patterns are informative of their product preferences, and this study proposes that marketers monetize this information using dynamic networks that capture colocation events (when consumers appear at the same place at approximately the same time). To support this theory, the authors study mobile advertising response in a panel of 217 subscribers. The data set spans three months during which participants were sent mobile coupons from retailers in various product categories through a smartphone application. The data contain coupon conversions, demographic and psychographic information, and information on the hourly GPS location of participants and on their social ties in the form of referrals. The authors find a significant positive relationship between colocated consumers' response to coupons in the same product category. In addition, they show that incorporating consumers' location information can increase the accuracy of predicting the most likely conversions by 19%. These findings have important practical implications for marketers engaging in the fast-growing location-based mobile advertising industry

Mobile Advertising and its Acceptance by American Consumers

Mobile advertising creates opportunities for marketers to capture the attention of consumers on a one-to-one basis. However, there is little data proving the success of mobile advertising models. This study examined the drivers that influence consumer’s acceptance of SMS-based mobile advertisements and the differences in responses between two cultures, Finland and the United States. My questionnaire and conceptual model was taken from a study done in Finland in 2007. My results indicated that utility, context and trust are positively related to the acceptance of mobile advertising while sacrifice is negatively related. Control did not have a clear relationship to acceptance because three of the four questions about control averaged more than 6.0 on a seven-point scale meaning there was no variation in the responses. However, when a separate regression was done on the remaining control question, a strong positive relationship between that question and acceptance was found

When and How to Advertise? An Empirical Study on Mobile Ad Response Based on Contextual Factors

Mobile technologies have enabled marketers to target consumers anywhere and anytime. However, as consumers react and respond differently depending on what situation they are in, there is an apparent need to determine when, where, and what kind of advertisement is most relevant to the consumer. Prior studies have found evidence on the influence of contextual factors such as location, time, and consumer behavior to the effectiveness of mobile ads but there has been little empirical evidence that examines contextual factors simultaneously. This paper proposes a holistic approach to examine the response of consumers when faced with two types of contextual factors (environmental and consumer contexts) through the lens of the Mobile Advertising Effectiveness Framework. Additionally, the influence of advertisement type (push- vs. pull-based) to these factors, along with the interactions among the variables are also investigated to determine which factors elicit the best response from consumers

Tackling food marketing to children in a digital world: trans-disciplinary perspectives. Children’s rights, evidence of impact, methodological challenges, regulatory options and policy implications for the WHO European Region

There is unequivocal evidence that childhood obesity is influenced by marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages high in saturated fat, salt and/or free sugars (HFSS), and a core recommendation of the WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity is to reduce children’s exposure to all such marketing. As a result, WHO has called on Member States to introduce restrictions on marketing of HFSS foods to children, covering all media, including digital, and to close any regulatory loopholes. This publication provides up-to-date information on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children and the changes that have occurred in recent years, focusing in particular on the major shift to digital marketing. It examines trends in media use among children, marketing methods in the new digital media landscape and children’s engagement with such marketing. It also considers the impact on children and their ability to counter marketing as well as the implications for children’s rights and digital privacy. Finally the report discusses the policy implications and some of the recent policy action by WHO European Member States

Mobile Privacy and Business-to-Platform Dependencies: An Analysis of SEC Disclosures

This Article systematically examines the dependence of mobile apps on mobile platforms for the collection and use of personal information through an analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings of mobile app companies. The Article uses these disclosures to find systematic evidence of how app business models are shaped by the governance of user data by mobile platforms, in order to reflect on the role of platforms in privacy regulation more generally. The analysis of SEC filings documented in the Article produces new and unique insights into the data practices and data-related aspects of the business models of popular mobile apps and shows the value of SEC filings for privacy law and policy research more generally. The discussion of SEC filings and privacy builds on regulatory developments in SEC disclosures and cybersecurity of the last decade. The Article also connects to recent regulatory developments in the U.S. and Europe, including the General Data Protection Regulation, the proposals for a new ePrivacy Regulation and a Regulation of fairness in business-to-platform relations