TYPES: Towards Transparency and Privacy in the Online Adversting Business Projects uri icon

type

  • European Research Project

reference

  • GA-653449-TYPES

date/time interval

  • May 1, 2015 - October 31, 2017

abstract

  • Online advertising generated in 2013 $42B worth of revenue and more than 3.4 million direct and indirect jobs in Europe in
    2012 alone. It supports some of the most important Internet services such as search, social media and user generated
    content sites. However, the lack of transparency regarding tracking techniques and the type of information companies collect
    about users is creating increasing concerns in society. Software tools for implementing total mitigation (e.g., ad blocker or
    cookies blocker) have been released to block any transfer of information from end users towards the online advertising
    ecosystem. A massive adoption of these tools by end users may cause disruptions in the digital economy by affecting the
    online advertising sector and leading to consequences such as losing of a large number of employments.
    TYPES aims to cope with this challenge by defining, implementing, and validating in pre-market status a holistic framework
    of technologies and tools that guarantees both transparency and privacy preservation, gives the end user control upon the
    amount of information he/she is willing to share, and defines privacy-by-design solutions. In particular, these tools should
    enable the end user: i) to configure the privacy settings so that only the information allowed by the end-user is collected by
    online advertising platforms; ii) to understand the flow of their information within the online advertising ecosystem and how it
    is being used; iii) to detect episodes of information collection occurring without consent and identify the offender; iv) to know
    the value of their data.
    TYPES will demonstrate solutions that protect user’s privacy while empowering them to control how their data is used by
    service providers for advertising purposes. At the same time, TYPES will make it easier to verify whether users’ online rights
    are respected and if personal data is exchanged for a reasonable value-added to users.

keywords

  • online advertising; privacy-by-design online; privacy violation detection and safeguarding; data valuation tools; data broker; online tracking; online targeting