Network measurements for web tracking analysis and detection: A tutorial

Abstract

Digital society has developed to a point where it is nearly impossible for a user to know what it is happening in the background when using the Internet. To understand it, it is necessary to perform network measurements not only at the network layer (e.g., IP, ICMP), but also at the application layer (e.g., HTTP). For example, opening a single website can trigger a cascade of requests to different servers and services to obtain the resources embedded inside it. This process is becoming so complex that, to explore only one website, the number of communications can explode easily from tens to hundreds depending on the website. Inside those communications, there is an ever-increasing portion dedicated to web tracking, a controversial practice from the security and privacy perspective [1].