Fingerprinting and Tracing Shadows: The Development and Impact of Browser Fingerprinting on Digital Privacy

TL;DR

This paper reviews browser fingerprinting techniques, analyzing their effectiveness and privacy implications, highlighting the challenges they pose for user privacy and control in the digital landscape.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of fingerprinting methods, assesses data uniqueness, and discusses the privacy risks associated with this tracking technology.

Findings

Fingerprinting techniques vary in data entropy and uniqueness.

Browser fingerprinting significantly impacts user privacy.

Users often lack awareness and control over fingerprinting practices.

Abstract

Browser fingerprinting is a growing technique for identifying and tracking users online without traditional methods like cookies. This paper gives an overview by examining the various fingerprinting techniques and analyzes the entropy and uniqueness of the collected data. The analysis highlights that browser fingerprinting poses a complex challenge from both technical and privacy perspectives, as users often have no control over the collection and use of their data. In addition, it raises significant privacy concerns as users are often tracked without their knowledge or consent.