A major new study of web tracking and privacy practices was published by the Wall Street Journal, with School of Information alumnus Ashkan Soltani (MIMS 2009) as the chief technical consultant. The research was a follow-up to his master's final project, KnowPrivacy.
Tracking the Trackers: Our Method
To determine the prevalence of Internet tracking technologies, The Wall Street Journal analyzed the 50 most-visited U.S. websites, as ranked by the comScore Media Metrix report from October 2009.
The Journal hired a technology consultant, Ashkan Soltani, to analyze the 50 sites for three types of tracking methods commonly used online: "HTML cookies," "Flash cookies" and "beacons."...
At the time of his hiring by the Journal, Mr. Soltani was an independent consultant. For his master's thesis at the University of California, Berkeley, he and co-authors analyzed the use of beacons at the top 100 U.S. websites. He is now a contract technologist at the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC had no role in this study....
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