skip to main content


Title: Dark Patterns after the GDPR: Scraping Consent Pop-ups and Demonstrating their Influence
New consent management platforms (CMPs) have been introduced to the web to conform with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, particularly its requirements for consent when companies collect and process users' personal data. This work analyses how the most prevalent CMP designs affect people's consent choices. We scraped the designs of the five most popular CMPs on the top 10,000 websites in the UK (n=680). We found that dark patterns and implied consent are ubiquitous; only 11.8% meet the minimal requirements that we set based on European law. Second, we conducted a field experiment with 40 participants to investigate how the eight most common designs affect consent choices. We found that notification style (banner or barrier) has no effect; removing the opt-out button from the first page increases consent by 22--23 percentage points; and providing more granular controls on the first page decreases consent by 8--20 percentage points. This study provides an empirical basis for the necessary regulatory action to enforce the GDPR, in particular the possibility of focusing on the centralised, third-party CMP services as an effective way to increase compliance.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1639994
NSF-PAR ID:
10161261
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of CHI '20 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1 to 13
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. null (Ed.)
    The need for magnetic 2D materials that are stable to the enviroment and have high Curie temperatures is very important for various electronic and spintronic applications. We have found that two-dimensional porphyrin-type aza-conjugated microporous polymer crystals are such a material (Fe-aza-CMPs). Fe-aza-CMPs are stable to CO, CO 2 , and O 2 atmospheres and show unusual adsorption, electronic, and magnetic properties. Indeed, they are semiconductors with small energy band gaps ranging from 0.27 eV to 0.626 eV. CO, CO 2 , and O 2 molecules can be attached in three different ways where single, double, or triple molecules are bound to iron atoms in Fe-aza-CMPs. For different attachment configurations we find that for CO and CO 2 a uniform distribution of the molecules is most energetically favorable while for O 2 molecules aggregation is most energetically preferable. The magnetic moments decrease from 4 to 2 to 0 for singly, doubly, triply occupied configurations for all gasses respectively. The most interesting magnetic properties are found for O 2 molecules attached to the Fe-aza-CMP. For a single attachment configuration we find that an antiferromagnetic state is favorable. When two O 2 molecules are attached, the calculations show the highest exchange integral with a value of J = 1071 μeV. This value has been verified by two independent methods where in the first method J is calculated by the energy difference between ferromagnetic and anitferromagnetic configurations. The second method is based on the frozen magnon approach where the magnon dispersion curve has been fitted by the Ising model. For the second method J has been estimated at J = 1100 μeV in excellent agreement with the first method. 
    more » « less
  2. We compare the notice and consent requirements of the three recent privacy regulations that are most likely to serve as the starting points for the creation of a comprehensive consumer privacy bill in the United States: the European General Data Protection Regulation, the California Consumer Privacy Act/California Privacy Rights Act, and the Federal Communications Commission’s Broadband Privacy Order. We compare the scope of personal information under each regulation, including the test for identifiability and exclusions for de-identified information, and identify problems with their treatment of de-identified information and of pseudonymous information. We compare notice requirements, including the level of required detail and the resulting ability of consumers to understand the use and flow of their personal information, and identify deficiencies with consumers’ ability to track the flow of their personal information. Finally, we compare consumer choices under each regulation, including when a consumer must agree to the use of their personal information in order to utilize a service or application, and find that none of the regulations take full advantage of the range of options, and thereby fail to disincentive tracking. 
    more » « less
  3. In July 2019, approximately 217 km of 2-D multichannel seismic reflection data were collected along 27 profiles on Oneida Lake, New York using a 120 channel Seamux™ solid-towed array marine streamer with a 3.125 m group interval and a maximum offset of ~400 meters. Data were originally recorded in SEG-D format on a NTRS2 recording system. Navigational data and ancillary data (ship speed, depth, etc.) were fed into the external header of each field file. The seismic source was a 4x10 in3 Bolt 2800 LLX airgun array and was towed at ~1 meter depth to allow for venting of seismic source air bubbles. Gun pressures varied from 1500 to 2000 PSI. Air guns were fired every 6.25 m distance using two high resolution (Trimble) GPS receivers for navigation. This geometry provided 30-fold seismic coverage with a common midpoint (CMP) interval of 1.56 m. Record length is 2 seconds and the sample rate is 0.25 ms. The following processing steps were applied to the dataset using SeisSpace/ProMAX Software. Data were initially reviewed in shot mode and noisy traces were edited. Geometry was applied using source and receiver offsets with group and shot intervals, and data were sorted into the CMP domain. Stacking velocities were picked using a combination of velocity semblance plots and constant velocity stacks applied to CMP supergathers. For the constant velocity stacks, supergathers were constructed from 51 CMPs and analyzed in increments of 100 CMPs. Once time-velocity pairs were selected, normal moveout was applied to the full profile data set and the data were stacked.Nested Ormsby bandpass filters of 110-135-1500-1700 Hz and 40-70-1100-1300 Hz were applied to the stacked datasets. Ormsby filter frequencies were picked by executing a careful parameter test where frequencies were altered incrementally until the ideal filter was produced. A post-stack F-K filter was applied to remove steeply dipping noise, and a careful comparison of F-K filtered profiles and raw profiles was conducted. A post-stack Kirchhoff time migration with a 200 ms bottom taper was applied using the RMS stacking velocities picked for each seismic profile. The data files are in SEG-Y format and were generated as part of a project called P2C2: A High Resolution Paleoclimate Archive of Termination I in Oneida Lake and Glacial Lake Iroquois Sediments. Funding was provided through NSF grant EAR18-04460 to Syracuse University. 
    more » « less
  4. null (Ed.)
    Assembling peptides allow the creation of structurally complex materials, where amino acid selection influences resulting properties. We present a synergistic approach of experiments and simulations for examining the influence of natural and non-natural amino acid substitutions via incorporation of charged residues and a reactive handle on the thermal stability and assembly of multifunctional collagen mimetic peptides (CMPs). Experimentally, we observed inclusion of charged residues significantly decreased the melting temperature of CMP triple helices with further destabilization upon inclusion of the reactive handle. Atomistic simulations of a single CMP triple helix in explicit water showed increased residue-level and helical structural fluctuations caused by the inclusion of the reactive handle; however, these atomistic simulations cannot be used to predict changes in CMP melting transition. Coarse-grained (CG) simulations of CMPs at experimentally relevant solution conditions, showed, qualitatively, the same trends as experiments in CMP melting transition temperature with CMP design. These simulations show that when charged residues are included electrostatic repulsions significantly destabilize the CMP triple helix and that an additional inclusion of a reactive handle does not significantly change the melting transition. Based on findings from both experiments and simulations, the sequence design was refined for increased CMP triple helix thermal stability, and the reactive handle was utilized for the incorporation of the assembled CMPs within covalently crosslinked hydrogels. Overall, a unique approach was established for predicting stability of CMP triple helices for various sequences prior to synthesis, providing molecular insights for sequence design towards the creation of bulk nanostructured soft biomaterials. 
    more » « less
  5. This fundamental research in pre-college education engineering study investigates the ways in which elementary school students and their teacher balance the tradeoffs in engineering design. STEM education reforms promote the engagement of K-12 students in the epistemic practices of disciplinary experts to teach content.1,2,3 This emphasis on practices is a paradigm shift that requires both extensive professional development and research to learn about the ways in which students and teacher learn about and participate in these practices. Balancing tradeoffs is an important practice in engineering but most often in classroom curricula it is embedded in the concept of iteration1,4; however, improving a design is not always the same as balancing trade-offs.1 Optimizing a multivariate problem requires students to engage in a number of engineering practices, like considering multiple solution, making tradeoffs between criteria and constraints, applying math and science knowledge to problem solving, constructing models, making evidence-based decisions, and assessing the implications of solutions5. The ways in which teachers and students collectively balance these tradeoffs in a design has been understudied1. Our primary research questions are, “How do teachers and students make decisions about making tradeoffs between criteria and constraints” and “How do experiences in teacher workshops affect the ways they implement engineering projects in their classes.” We take an ethnographic perspective to investigate these phenomena, and collected video data, field notes, student journals, and semi-structured interviews of eight elementary teachers in a workshop and similar data from two of the workshop teachers’ classes as they implemented the curriculum they learned in the workshop. Our analyses focus on the disciplinary practices teachers and students use to make decisions for balancing tradeoffs, how they are supported (or impeded) by teachers, and how they justify these decisions. Similarly, we compared two of the teachers wearing their “student hat” in the workshop as well as their “teacher hat” in the classroom5. Our analyses suggest three significant findings. First, teachers and students tended to focus on one criterion (e.g. cost, performance) and had few discussions about trying to minimize cost and maximize performance. Second, curriculum design significantly impacts the choices students make. Using two examples, we will show the impact of weighting criteria differently on the design strategies teachers and students make. Last, we noted most of the feedback given was related to managing classroom activity rather than supporting students’ designs. Implications of this study are relevant to both engineering educators and engineering curriculum developers. 
    more » « less