Informing Users About Fingerprinting

Sammanfattning: In peoples hyperconnected lives, a price to pay is their internet privacy and the different risks it faces the second their browser connects to the web. One such risk comes from how web tracking collect and analyze users information. This paper explores an approach to how web browsers can inform its users about the web tracking technique Fingerprinting, and through the concept presentation of this approach see: what key key aspects of visual aesthetics that affects the users experience when being informed; and to what extent differences in technological interest and knowledge affect users reception of Fingerprinting information, and the implementation implications the differences leads to. For this purpose a high fidelity prototype was created to: represent the concept of web browsers having integrated educational pages meant to inform its users on topics such as Fingerprinting, and to; be used in a user test. The results showed: a lack of knowledge on the existence of Fingerprinting; that differences in technological interest and knowledge among users affected what aspects of visual aesthetics they valued; and that those with less technological interest and knowledge to a higher degree had their attitudes towards Internet Privacy affected by the prototype’s information. It also showed that the differences affects users approach and interactions with software, and that the design implications this brings are to be considered for future browser functionality implementations.