Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien Magisterarbeit - SemanticLab

1. Introduction
This thesis addresses the users’ need for privacy on the World Wide Web (WWW),
common threats to privacy and which solutions exist to encounter these threats on the
Internet 1 .
Every Internet-application such as an e-commerce shop, an online banking application
or a search-engine needs certain data to function and it collects this data from its users.
This collected data is protected by laws and regulations. However, these laws do not
necessarily protect the data as strictly as users would expect. If users have a lack of
understanding of how their data can be (mis-)used once it has been collected, then this
leads to a precarious situation considering the false prospects of data protection laws.
1.1. Objective
The issue of web browsing privacy and privacy threats is especially important as more
and more services are delivered online: Internet banking, medical advice, e-mail, tax
return, e-learning, shopping and much more [Ant07]. All these services need certain user
information to operate. A web shop for example needs an e-mail address to send status
e-mails to the customer. It needs credit card information or bank account information to
withdraw the money. And it has to know the real name and address of a user to deliver
the products purchased. For the convenience of the customer, all this data can be stored
on one of the vendors’ servers - if the customer has provided this information once, he
or she does not have to provide it during the checkout for the following purchases. From
a customer perspective, that definitely is convenient. On the other hand, does the user
still have control over his data? Can he or she be absolutely certain, that no one is going
to mis-use the data provided?
Certainly, there are regulations and laws which, in most countries, prohibit acts such as
mis-use of personal data (e.g. “The Federal Act Concerning the Protection of Personal
Data” - DSG 2000 - in Austria or the “Data protection directive” 95/46/EC of the
European Union). At least the owner of the data has to agree if his or her data is being
used for other purposes. Privacy policies, for example, can be found at every commercial
website or portal. However, the question is how many web users are actually able to
find such policies. And if they have been found, if they are read and also understood.
Another issue arises when it comes to the lack of understanding how information and
data provided during web browsing can easily be found on the web. If one takes a closer
look at social networks such as Facebook or MySpace - do users really know that all their
2
1 Although technically not correct, the terms “WWW” and “Internet” are going to be used interchangeable
in this thesis for the readers’ benefit