Request policy: Increasing web browsing privacy through control of cross-site requests

Justin Samuel, Beichuan Zhang

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Many requests that a Web browser makes are not made to the primary site a user is visiting. It is common for websites to instruct browsers to make additional requests to third-party sites for content, advertisements, as well as for purely user-tracking purposes. Current techniques for maintaining user privacy with respect to cross-site requests are limited and inadequate. We propose a client-side whitelist for controlling third-party website requests. We implement this as RequestPolicy, an extension for Mozilla browsers. We look at the usability of RequestPolicy as well its impact on the Web browsing experience. Our extension maintains a high level of usability while safeguarding user privacy against well-known threats in addition to new threats we draw attention to.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationPrivacy Enhancing Technologies - 9th International Symposium, PETS 2009, Proceedings
Pages128-142
Number of pages15
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009
Event9th International Symposium on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, PETS 2009 - Seattle, WA, United States
Duration: Aug 5 2009Aug 7 2009

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume5672 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Other

Other9th International Symposium on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, PETS 2009
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySeattle, WA
Period8/5/098/7/09

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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