The Illusion of Privacy: Investigating User Misperceptions in Browser Tracking Protection

要旨

Third parties track users' web browsing activities, raising privacy concerns. Tracking protection extensions prevent this, but their influence on privacy protection beliefs shaped by narratives remains uncertain. This paper investigates users' misperception of tracking protection offered by browser plugins. Our study explores how different narratives influence users' perceived privacy protection by examining three tracking protection extension narratives: no protection, functional protection, and a placebo. In a study (N=36), participants evaluated their anticipated protection during a hotel booking process, influenced by the narrative about the plugin's functionality. However, participants viewed the same website without tracking protection adaptations. We show that users feel more protected when informed they use a functional or placebo extension, compared to no protection. Our findings highlight the deceptive nature of misleading privacy tools, emphasizing the need for greater transparency to prevent users from a false sense of protection, as such misleading tools negatively affect user study results.

著者
Maximiliane Windl
LMU Munich, Munich, Germany
Roman Amberg
LMU Munich, Munich, Germany
Thomas Kosch
HU Berlin, Berlin, Germany
DOI

10.1145/3706598.3713912

論文URL

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713912

動画

会議: CHI 2025

The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (https://chi2025.acm.org/)

セッション: Data Privacy and Ethics

G304
7 件の発表
2025-04-30 20:10:00
2025-04-30 21:40:00
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