The Exploitation of Web Navigation Data: Ethical Issues and Alternative Scenarios

TL;DR

This paper discusses the ethical concerns surrounding web navigation data collection, identifies involved entities, and proposes alternative scenarios and suggestions to address privacy issues and restore user control.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the entities involved in web data collection and introduces ethical considerations along with alternative approaches to mitigate privacy concerns.

Findings

Users lose control over private data

Multiple entities collect and use browsing data

Proposed ethical scenarios and suggestions

Abstract

Nowadays, the users' browsing activity on the Internet is not completely private due to many entities that collect and use such data, either for legitimate or illegal goals. The implications are serious, from a person who exposes unconsciously his private information to an unknown third party entity, to a company that is unable to control its information to the outside world. As a result, users have lost control over their private data in the Internet. In this paper, we present the entities involved in users' data collection and usage. Then, we highlight what are the ethical issues that arise for users, companies, scientists and governments. Finally, we present some alternative scenarios and suggestions for the entities to address such ethical issues.