A4 Refereed article in a conference publication
Investigating Third-Party Data Leaks and in Online Electronics Stores
Authors: Heino, Timi; Carlsson, Robin; Puhtila, Panu; Rajapaksha, Sammani; Lohi, Henna; Rauti, Sampsa
Editors: Yang, Xin-She; Sherratt, Simon; Dey, Nilanjan; Joshi, Amit
Conference name: International Congress on Information and Communication Technology
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Publication year: 2025
Journal: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems
Book title : Proceedings of Tenth International Congress on Information and Communication Technology, ICICT 2025, London, Volume 6
Volume: 1412
First page : 383
Last page: 394
ISBN: 978-981-96-6428-3
eISBN: 978-981-96-6429-0
ISSN: 2367-3370
eISSN: 2367-3389
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-6429-0_32
Publication's open availability at the time of reporting: No Open Access
Publication channel's open availability : No Open Access publication channel
Web address : https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-96-6429-0_32
Electronics is one of the most popular product categories among consumers online. In this paper, we conduct a study on the third-party data leaks occurring in the websites of the most online electronics stores used by Finnish residents, as well as the amounts of third parties present at these websites. We studied the leaks by recording and analyzing the network traffic happening from the website while conducting actions at the website that the normal user does when purchasing the product. We also analyze dark patterns found in these websites’ cookie consent banners. Our results show that in 80% of the cases, the product name, product ID, and price were leaked to third parties along with the data identifying the user. Almost all of the inspected websites used dark patterns in their cookie consent banners, and privacy policies often had severe deficiencies in informing the user of the extent of data collection.
Funding information in the publication:
This research has been funded by Academy of Finland project 327397, IDA – Intimacy in Data-Driven Culture.
