Disposable identities: Solving web tracking

Abstract

Interrupting the web tracking kill chain is enough to disrupt the tracker’s ability to leverage the collected information; however, this may disrupt the personalized services enjoyed by many. Empowering the user to select which domains can be co-tracked gives him/her the upper hand over web trackers. This allows the user to enjoy the personalized services without fearing full inter-domain tracking. To achieve this, we propose a solution that attempts to introduce layers of anonymization serving as temporary identities to be used by the user while browsing. Those identities will be used for limited time (to sustain the customization and user experience resulting from tracking), and then discarded for a new identity. This approach allows the user to divide the activity into profiles which eliminates browsing history spilling over to other sessions. We proved the security of this approach mathematically and we demonstrated its usability using an open-source Proof-of-Concept built on top of blockchain.