‘Tracking’ is the collection of data about an individual’s activity across multiple distinct contexts and the retention, use, or sharing of data derived from that activity outside the context in which it occurred. This paper aims to introduce tracking on the web, smartphones, and the Internet of Things, to an audience with little or no previous knowledge. It covers these topics primarily from the perspective of computer science and humancomputer interaction, but also includes relevant law and policy aspects. Rather than a systematic literature review, it aims to provide an overarching narrative spanning this large research space. Section 1 introduces the concept of tracking. Section 2 provides a short history of the major developments of tracking on the web. Section 3 presents research covering the detection, measurement and analysis of web tracking technologies. Section 4 delves into the countermeasures against web tracking and mechanisms that have been proposed to allow users to control and limit tracking, as well as studies into end-user perspectives on tracking. Section 5 focuses on tracking on ‘smart’ devices including smartphones and the internet of things. Section 6 covers emerging issues affecting the future of tracking across these different platforms.
The rationale for designing, implementing and managing security technologies has a notion of “risk” at its core; the risk of compromise to technology or information weighed up against the cost of protecting against such an incursion. However, such approaches have been focused on the protection of technology and information, with the assumption that if this is protected then people are also protected; an assumption that is much harder to maintain in a more open, networked context such as the one that has been enabled by growth of the World Wide Web. Grounded in the interdisciplinary endeavours that characterise Web Science, this monograph presents the case for a more inclusive form of technological security. Such a security places the security of technology in the context of the security of people operating in a web-enabled and digitally-connected society and results in a digital security that responds to the enmeshed nature of technology and society. This monograph uses a wide analytical lens that encompasses the sociotechnical infrastructures, networks of power and the practices that shape our interactions with and through digital technologies to explore this more expansive form of security.
Alongside existing research into the social, political and economicimpacts of the Web, there is a need to study the Webfrom a cognitive and epistemic perspective. This is particularlyso as new and emerging technologies alter the natureof our interactive engagements with the Web, transformingthe extent to which our thoughts and actions are shaped bythe online environment. Situated and ecological approachesto cognition are relevant to understanding the cognitive significanceof the Web because of the emphasis they place onforces and factors that reside at the level of agent-world interactions.In particular, by adopting a situated or ecologicalapproach to cognition, we are able to assess the significanceof the Web from the perspective of research into embodied,extended, embedded, social and collective cognition. Theresults of this analysis help to reshape the interdisciplinaryconfiguration of Web Science, expanding its theoretical andempirical remit to include the disciplines of both cognitivescience and the philosophy of mind.
Hybrid Human-Machine Information Systems leverage novel architecturesthat make systematic use of Human Computation by means ofcrowdsourcing. These architectures are capable of scaling over largeamounts of data and simultaneously maintain high-quality data processinglevels by introducing humans into the loop. Such hybrid systemshave been developed to tackle a variety of problems and come withinter-disciplinary challenges. They need to deal with the full spectrumof challenges from the social science standpoint, such as understandingcrowd workers behavior and motivations when performing tasks.These systems also need to overcome highly technical challenges likeconstraint optimization and resource allocation based on limited budgetsand deadlines to be met.In this paper, we introduce the area of Human Computation andpresent an overview of different applications for which Hybrid Human-Machine Information Systems have already been used in the realms ofdata management, information retrieval, natural language processing,semantic web, machine learning, and multimedia to better solve existingproblems. Finally, we discuss current research directions, opportunitiesfor the future development of such systems and their applicationin practice.
Understanding the dynamics of collective human attention has been called a key scientific challenge for the information age. Tackling this challenge, this monograph explores the dynamics of collective attention related to Internet phenomena such as Internet memes, viral videos, or social media platforms and Web-based businesses. To this end, we analyze time series data that directly or indirectly represent how the interest of large populations of Web users in content or services develops over time. Regardless of regional or cultural contexts, we generally observe strong regularities in time series that reflect attention dynamics and we discuss mathematical models that provide plausible explanations as to what drives the apparently dominant dynamics of rapid initial growth and prolonged decline.
