Annoyed Users: Ads and Ad-Block Usage in the Wild Enric Pujol - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Annoyed Users: Ads and Ad-Block Usage in the Wild Enric Pujol - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Oct 31, 2022 499 likes •836 views

Annoyed Users: Ads and Ad-Block Usage in the Wild Enric Pujol Oliver Hohlfeld Anja Feldmann TU Berlin RWTH Aachen TU Berlin IMC15 Tokyo, Japan 2 http://www.journalism.org/2015/04/29/digital-news-revenue-fact-sheet Page Fair and Adobe

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Annoyed Users: Ads and Ad-Block Usage in the Wild

IMC’15 Tokyo, Japan

Oliver Hohlfeld RWTH Aachen Anja Feldmann TU Berlin Enric Pujol TU Berlin

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http://www.journalism.org/2015/04/29/digital-news-revenue-fact-sheet Page Fair and Adobe report on Ad Blocking

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Mozilla Add-on statistics

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Publishers reaction

5 The Guardian

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(Why can I not see BILD.de?)

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Acceptable ads program (non-intrusive ads)

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White-listing within AdBlockPlus (ABP)

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Our work

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Online advertising Residential Broadband Network Methodology based on AdBlockPlus Characterize ad traffic Ad-blocker usage

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URL

||ads.example.com^ $ script, image, domain=bar.com

www.bar.com

#document HTML HEAD BODY … IMG DOM Tree Content-Type Base URL

Is this information available in HTTP header traces?

http://ads.example. com/ad.gif www.foo.com

Content Policy

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||ads.example.com ^ $ script, image, domain=foo.com

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||ads.example.com ^ $ script, image, domain=foo.com

HTTP logs Bro IDS

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||ads.example.com ^ $ script, image, domain=foo.com

HTTP logs Bro IDS Map Web Pages ReferrerMap

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||ads.example.com ^ $ script, image, domain=foo.com

Classify requests libadblockplus + filter lists HTTP logs Bro IDS Map Web Pages ReferrerMap

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Limitations

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HTTPS traffic Content-Type HTTP logs Referrer Map Web page Classification Hidden ads (CSS) List sanity

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Ad-blocker usage indicators

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Low ratio of ad requests Easylist updates

AdBlock Plus

Caveat: ad-free content

Any ad-blocker

Caveat: HTTPS + NATs

How to find a suitable threshold?

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Active measurements

Values for the complete set of Alexa top 1K

Browser Mode #HTTP ad-requests ratio Vanilla 57.8K 16 % Adblock Plus + all lists 48.5K <0.1 %

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When can we apply ad-ratio indicator?

At least 1K requests. Set threshold to 5%

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Vanilla: no plugin AdBP-Pa: adblockPlus + all lists

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Data sets

Trace RBN-1 RBN-2 Duration 4 days 15 and ½ hours Subscribers 7.5 K 19.7 K HTTPbytes 18.8 TB 11.4 TB HTTPrequests 131.95 M 85.09 M Characterize ad traffic Assess ad-blocker prevalence

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How much ad-related traffic?

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Ad-related traffic EasyList and derivatives (55 %) EasyPrivacy (35 %) Acceptable ads (10 %) 0 % 18 % 100 % Black-listed (57%)

“Loose filters” @@||gstatic.com^$document

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How many ABP-capable browsers?

Requests: 50 % (all) 72 % (ads)

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500K pairs <IP, UserAgent> 1.6K unique UserAgent strings 9.2 K users Heavy hitters Mobile Firefox Chrome Safari IE 33 % 24 % 15 % 21 % 7 % Known browsers

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Ad Ratio EasyList

✘ ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔

28.10.2015

Browsers with no evidence of an adblocker: 46% of the ad traffic

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Inconsistent indicators a) various users in the same household

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Ad Ratio EasyList

✘ ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔

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Inconsistent indicators a) different plugin, or b) ad-free content

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Ad Ratio EasyList

✘ ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔

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Evidence of Adblock Plus for 22% of the users Still generate ad traffic!

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Ad Ratio EasyList

✘ ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔

?

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Most AdBlockPlus users do not change default settings

82% 11 % 7% EasyPrivacy Acceptable ads EasyList No ad blocker EasyPrivacy Acceptable ads

99% 87%

ABP users

90% 70%

How do users configure ABP?

AGGREGATED

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Summary

Can we use existing functionality to classify ad traffic? Yes, we can! (but limitations apply)

28 28.10.2015

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Summary

Can we use existing functionality to classify ad traffic? Yes, we can! (but limitations apply) Which traffic is potentially affected by Adblock Plus? ~18% requests and ~1% HTTP bytes Google, CDNs, Cloud Providers and dedicated ASes 10% of the ad-related traffic is white listed

29 28.10.2015

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Summary

Can we use existing functionality to classify ad traffic? Yes, we can! (but limitations apply) Which traffic is potentially affected by Adblock Plus? ~18% requests and ~1% HTTP bytes Google, CDNs, Cloud Providers and dedicated ASes 10% of the ad-related traffic conforms Acceptable Ads Can we measure how end users adopt ad-block plugins? Yes, in our traces ~20% of users Out-of-the-box i.e., acceptable ads / no EasyPrivacy

30 28.10.2015

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Thank you!

Can we use existing functionality to classify ad traffic? Yes, we can! (but limitations apply) Which traffic is potentially affected by Adblock Plus? ~18% requests and ~1% HTTP bytes Google, CDNs, Cloud Providers and dedicated ASes 10% of the ad-related traffic conforms Acceptable Ads Can we measure how end users adopt ad-block plugins? Yes, in our traces ~20% of users Out-of-the-box i.e., acceptable ads / no EasyPrivacy

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