“Youtube is my teacher” or how your browser history shapes the way you think
by Anna Kornilovich
An elderly member of parliament searched on the Internet means to improve blood circulation in the brain. An investigator wrote a letter to a foreign provider about a cybercrime with the usage of Google Translate. One judge searched for prams and BDSM porn.
Everything of the named information was discovered almost effortlessly.
Look now at your browser history. This information can tell a lot about your preferences, judgments, and ways to influence you. Have you ever thought though, about who can reach your search history, even if it was made via incognito mode?
Two people from Germany experimented [1]: they wanted to buy a database of German user visits. After the creation of a website for a fake marketing company and fake accounts on LinkedIn, they started writing to companies that sell data. I will not go in-depth on how the process worked, however, I will show you what they have discovered.
Researchers managed to find one of the browser extensions that trade data on user visits (ironically, this was an extension warning the user about unscrupulous sites.). Based on this database and extra data from sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Google Maps researchers were able to deanonymize people, even with some of the information missing. After comparing the two data sets, researches found out what health problems a member of the parliament has and what kind of porn is interesting for judges.
Browser extensions surveil user data in return for convenience. Grammar check extensions collect user-entered text, including social media posts, documents, and emails. In exchange for such conveniences, users are bombarded with personalized insights, performance stats, or advertisements. When such data is collected for tailored advertisements, market research, or enhanced browsing experiences, it may inadvertently end up in the wrong hands. Thus, the very same data that enhances personal experiences, jeopardizes personal, corporate, and government information.
Grammar check extensions can easily collect and trade the info from text. What about attachments then? When trading with extensions, companies can search, view, scrape, and save publicly accessible attachments leaked by users with these extensions installed in their browsers. This includes document, image, and video attachments from popular platforms such as Facebook Messenger and Zendesk. This vulnerability compromises the possible confidential and/or sensitive nature of the files being transmitted.
Will you be still influenced if you delete all the extensions? Sorry, but no. Even based just on public data, the preferences can be grasped and used to change one’s mind. The well-known example is Cambridge Analytica [2], who used the public info (as they claim) to change the mindsets of prosperous voters. The data was collected through an app called “thisisyourdigitallife”. Based on likes and topics that were brought up in comments of users and their friends, the company has created additional content, placed the tailored advertisement and custom blog posts on Facebook that would change the mindset of a user and make him voting for the needed candidate (will not go politically oriented here, just check the info about it). The content could be created not only by a human [3]. The recent inventions in the Artificial Intelligence(AI) sphere made it possible to generate the speeches of famous politicians based on their performance in the United Nations (UN).
Last but not least, Youtube. What is happening on this platform is totally up to the new Youtube engine. However, people need to be careful about what they watch. YouTube’s recommendation system is engineered to maximize watch time. The system suggests what to watch next, often playing the videos automatically. But the emotions that draw people in — like fear, doubt, and anger — are often central features of conspiracy theories, sometimes changing one’s political mindset. A good example here is the situation in Brazil [4]. As the system suggests more provocative videos to keep users watching, it can direct them toward extreme content they might otherwise never find. The awareness about what you watch could already help with this but turning off the history of watched videos could help even more.
The moral of the story is: to be careful. It is not needed to delete your profiles from every social media and stop communicating via the Internet. However, it is important to filter the data you place on the Internet and be attentive to the information you receive.
