UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON A Sociotechnical Exploration of Online Behavioural Tracking and Advertising Technologies and Practices by Faranak Hardcastle A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics School of Electronics and Computer Science 2019 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF ENGINEERING, SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS SCHOOL OF ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE Doctor of Philosophy by Faranak Hardcastle As the Web evolved and extended to its current scale it has been driven by a range of di- vergent and competing visions about its constitution, purpose and future. The original vision of a global knowledge sharing system is now subsumed by a range of business models driven largely by monetising consumer data and metadata. Online Behavioural Tracking and Advertising (OBTA) constitute major business models underlying the Web today. Therefore, understanding OBTA is critical for thinking about the future of the Web. However, lack of transparency in OBTA technologies and practices has made developing such understanding challenging. This thesis explores if and how a sociotech- nical intervention for systematic communication of operational details in OBTA can be imagined. Informed by social theory and Science and Technologies Studies (STS), this exploration involves conceptualising a model for documenting and querying provenance of analytic and administrative operational details behind a targeted ad within the frame- work of speculative design using software engineering methods and W3C PROV, and conducting key informant interviews to explore if and how the model could be imagined to come to use, and provoke wider discussions. The research contributes to a sociotech- nical understanding of OBTA and the dynamics of its present state that is required for a sociotechnical future making for the Web. Contents Acknowledgements xiii 1 Introduction1 1.1 Statement of the problem...........................3 1.2 About this thesis................................6 1.3 Research rationale and questions.......................7 1.4 Contribution..................................9 1.5 Outline..................................... 10 2 Theoretical Approach 13 2.1 OBTA as sociotechnical assemblages..................... 14 2.2 Accounting for sociotechnical agency..................... 20 2.3 Conclusion: An integrated approach..................... 24 3 Online Behavioural Tracking and Advertising 29 3.1 Definitions.................................... 30 3.1.1 Tracking................................. 30 3.1.2 Targeted Advertising.......................... 31 3.1.3 OBTA, Contingency, & Interpretive Flexibility........... 32 3.2 Common technologies and practices...................... 34 3.2.1 Tracking................................. 34 3.2.1.1 Cookies............................ 35 3.2.1.2 Stateless Tracking...................... 38 3.2.2 Targeted advertising.......................... 39 3.3 The historical context of OBTA........................ 41 3.3.1 Mutually constitutive heterogeneous relations............ 42 3.3.2 Data brokers.............................. 45 3.3.3 The co-production attention economy................ 46 3.4 Conclusion.................................... 47 4 Critical questions surrounding OBTA technologies and practices 51 4.1 The wider picture................................ 52 4.1.1 Promises and challenges of Big Data for social science research.. 53 4.1.2 Critical questions surrounding algorithmic knowing and decision making................................. 55 4.2 Bias, inaccuracies, and lack of reflexivity................... 56 4.3 Discrimination, exclusion and redlining.................... 59 4.4 Privacy harms.................................. 61 v vi CONTENTS 4.5 Click-fraud, brand damage, market concentration and spread of problem- atic information................................. 64 4.6 Trust....................................... 66 4.7 Conclusion.................................... 67 5 Previous interventions 71 5.1 A history of previous interventions...................... 72 5.2 Notice and choice/consent model....................... 78 5.3 Beyond notice and choice........................... 81 5.4 Algorithmic transparency........................... 82 5.5 Conclusion.................................... 87 6 Designing a sociotechnical intervention 89 6.1 Designing the research and theoretical inspirations............. 89 6.1.1 Speculative Design........................... 90 6.1.2 Sociotechnical imaginaries....................... 92 6.2 Methodology.................................. 93 6.2.1 Conceptualising a model (TATE)................... 94 6.2.1.1 Imagined users and uses................... 94 6.2.1.2 Documenting and querying provenance of analytic and administrative processes................... 97 6.2.2 Key informant interviews....................... 100 6.2.2.1 Data Collection....................... 101 6.2.2.2 Analysis............................ 106 6.3 Conclusion.................................... 108 7 Speculative design of TATE 111 7.1 Overview.................................... 111 7.1.1 Early Stakeholder Analysis...................... 112 7.1.2 Use Case Scenario........................... 114 7.1.2.1 Alice first visiting...................... 115 7.1.2.2 Alice revisiting........................ 115 7.1.3 General Requirements......................... 116 7.1.4 Abstraction............................... 116 7.1.4.1 Actors............................. 117 7.1.4.2 Environment......................... 117 7.1.4.3 Sequence of Interactions................... 119 7.1.4.4 Data flow- cookie sync.................... 124 7.1.5 Early Requirements.......................... 126 7.2 Provenance................................... 127 7.2.1 PROV.................................. 128 7.2.2 Core types................................ 129 7.2.3 Representation in PROV........................ 131 7.2.4 Validating Requirements........................ 132 7.3 Speculating explanations............................ 137 7.4 Conclusion.................................... 138 8 Speculations about TATE’s affordances 141 CONTENTS vii 8.1 Overview.................................... 141 8.2 Perceptions of the concerns surrounding OBTA............... 143 8.2.1 Framing the future........................... 144 8.2.2 Overlaps and gaps in consumer and industry concerns....... 146 8.3 No affordances................................. 147 8.4 Speculations about TATE’s affordances for imagined users and uses.... 151 8.4.1 Individuals/researchers......................... 151 8.4.2 OBTA Companies........................... 153 8.4.3 Governance and public policy..................... 162 8.5 Revisiting features, and design of the conceptualised model........ 168 8.5.1 Stakeholder analysis, scenario, and sequence diagram........ 168 8.5.2 Current imagined use on the web user level............. 169 8.5.3 Other imagined users and uses.................... 171 8.6 Conclusion.................................... 172 9 Conclusion 175 9.1 Introduction................................... 175 9.2 Returning to the theoretical approach.................... 178 9.3 Recommendations and Future Work..................... 181 Bibliography 183 List of Figures 7.1 Early Stakeholder Analysis.......................... 113 7.2 Sequence Diagram of Scenario 7.1.2.1 (first 6 steps)............ 119 7.3 Sequence Diagram of Scenario 7.1.2.1 (step 7-19).............. 121 7.4 Sequence Diagram of Scenario 7.1.2.1 (steps 20-22)............. 121 7.5 Sequence Diagram of Scenario 7.1.2.1 (step 23-27)............. 123 7.6 Sequence Diagram of Scenario 7.1.2.1..................... 125 7.7 Data Flow Diagram of cookie syncing in an extended version of scenario 7.1.2.1 building upon Englehardt(2014); Acar et al.(2014) and Google(e).125 7.8 Three Different Views of the Core of PROV by Moreau and Groth(2013, pp.22-Figure 3.1)................................. 128 7.9 A UML diagram of the Entity-Activity-Agent model from PROV standard Moreau et al.(2013a).............................. 129 7.10 Abstracting core activities from Figure 7.9.................. 130 7.11 PROV graph of step 24 in Figure 7.6..................... 131 7.12 PROV graph extending entity ‘Request’ of step 24 in Figure 7.6...... 132 7.13 Instantiated PROV graph of step 25 in Figure 7.6.............. 133 7.14 A Provenance graph visualising the activity ’collect’ and the data from an http request as its input............................. 134 7.16 Query and results validating Req 1 and 3................... 134 7.15 A sub-graph generated by a template and binding.............. 135 7.17 Query and results validating Req 6-1...................... 136 7.18 Speculating basic explanations-web user level................. 138 ix List of Tables 6.1 Interview Details................................. 103 xi Acknowledgements I am incredibly grateful to my supervisors Susan Halford and Luc Moreau for guiding me throughout this research, constructive feedback, extensive conversations, and patience during the difficult times. Your feedback and guidance have been central in shaping this research, and your support has been key to empowering me to carry on. The feedback I received from my examiners, Rob Kitchin and Nick Gibbins has been critical to improving this thesis. I am also very grateful to Les Carr, and, my recent supervisor, Mark Weal, for their feedback, discussions, collaborations, advice, and con- tinuous support. I have also greatly benefited from the support of the