Open Access

ARTICLE

Web Tracking Domain and Possible Privacy Defending Tools: A Literature Review

by Maryam Abdulaziz Saad Bubukayr^1,*, Mounir Frikha²

1 College of Computer Science and Information Technology, King Faisal University, Alahsa, 31982, Saudi Arabia
2 Department of Computer Networks and Communications, King Faisal University, Alahsa, 31982, Saudi Arabia

* Corresponding Author: Maryam Abdulaziz Saad Bubukayr. Email:

Journal of Cyber Security 2022, 4(2), 79-94. https://doi.org/10.32604/jcs.2022.029020

Received 30 April 2022; Accepted 01 June 2022; Issue published 04 July 2022

Abstract

Personal data are strongly linked to web browsing history. By visiting a certain website, a user can share her favorite items, location, employment status, financial information, preferences, gender, medical status, news, etc. Therefore, web tracking is considered as one of the most significant internet privacy threats that can have a serious impact on end-users. Usually, it is used by most websites to track visitors through the internet in order to enhance their services and improve search customization. Moreover, selling users’ data to the advertising companies without their permission. Although there are more research efforts focused on third-party tracking to protect user privacy, there are still no comprehensive approaches to develop an efficient and accessible privacy protection method, even if more attention is paid to the topic. The main goal of this paper is to conduct a literature review on the web-tracking domain and possible privacy defending methods by presenting an overview of privacy issues, determining the possible tracking mechanisms that might be exploited, discussing the available privacy defense tools that could be utilized for improvement, and presenting the strength and weaknesses of each method.

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Keywords

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