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Media Coverage

2023

IMC 23 Best Paper Award: Tracking, Profiling, and Ad Targeting in the Alexa Echo Smart
Speaker Ecosystem

WashU Expert: Your smart speaker data is used in ways you might not expect, The Source|Newsroom, October 26, 2023.

Study Shows Alexa Invades Privacy, Collects User Data for Ad-Targeting, UC Davis CS News, November 16, 2023.

An Empirical Study & Evaluation of Modern CAPTCHAs

Bots are better at beating ‘are you a robot?’ tests than humans are, NewScientist, August 8, 2023.

Bots Are Now Able To Solve and Bypass Captcha Questions, TechRound, August 10, 2023.

Bots can solve ‘captcha’ tests quicker than humans, The Times of London, August 11, 2023.

David Choffnes & Woodrow Hartzog

Your Smart Devices Are Trying to Manipulate You With ‘Dark Patterns’, Consumer Reports, April 17, 2023.

Woodrow Hartzog

Fed up with facial recognition cameras monitoring your every move? Italian fashion may have the answer, CNN, January 16, 2023.

Lawyers Barred by Madison Square Garden Found a Way Back In, The New York Times, January 16, 2023.

2022

Your Echos are Heard: Tracking, Profiling, and Ad Targeting in the Amazon Smart Speaker Ecosystem

Amazon keeps growing, and so does its cache of data on you, AP News, August 23, 2022.

Ad Targeting in Amazon Smart Speakers, Data Skeptic (Podcast), August 22, 2022.

Privacy Concerns Over Growing Household Footprint, Fox News, August 2022.

Lawsuit claims Amazon using Alexa to target ads at customers, Axios, June 16, 2022.

Ad Targeting Segment, Fox 12 KPTV-TV, May 1, 2022.

Report Reveals How Amazon Uses Alexa Voice Data for Targeted Ads, PC Mag, April 29, 2022.

Researchers find Amazon uses Alexa voice data to target you with ads, The Verge, April 28, 2022.

Study: How Amazon uses Echo smart speaker conversations to target ads, The Register, April 27, 2022.

OVRSeen: Auditing Network Traffic and Privacy Policies in Oculus VR

Feds eye virtual reality as the next privacy and security battleground, README_, Nov 4, 2022.

Facebook’s Meta, tracking code, and the student financial aid website, The Register, April 22, 2022.

David Choffnes 

Why You Should—or Shouldn’t—Buy a Home Security Camera, The Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2022.

Woodrow Hartzog

Data Vu: Why Breaches Involve the Same Stories Over and Over Again, Scientific American, July 26, 2022. (op ed)

We’re So Close to Getting Data Loyalty Right, International Association of Privacy Professionals, June 14, 2022. (op ed)

We Still Haven’t Learned the Major Lesson of the 2013 Target Hack, Slate, April 13, 2022. (op ed)

An AI Company Scraped Billions of Photos For Facial Recognition. Regulators Can’t Stop It, Time, May 27, 2022.

She thought a dark moment in her past was forgotten. Then she scanned her face online, CNN, May 24, 2022.

Mass. lawmakers advance digital privacy bill, Boston Globe, February 1, 2022.

Lawmakers Plan Legislation to ‘Ban Surveillance Advertising’, Vice, January 18, 2022.

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2021

David Choffnes 

The Amazon lobbyists who kill U.S. consumer privacy protections, CNBC, November 19, 2021.

A Thumbs Down for Streaming Privacy, The New York Times, August 24, 2021.

Your Echo is now sharing your internet with your neighbors. Here’s how to opt out. , Recode, Jun. 8, 2021.

Connected Devices Share More Data Than Needed, Study Says, Consumer Reports, May 18, 2021.

Final Results: Google Nest Hub With Sleep Tracking, Consumer Reports, Mar. 30, 2021.

Why WhatsApp users are pushing family members to Signal, CNet|Tech, February 5, 2021.

Woodrow Hartzog

Survey sheds light on police use of facial recognition, The Daily News of Newburyport, December 18, 2021.

Facebook is shutting down its facial recognition software, CNN, November 8, 2021.

Facebook backtracks on facial recognition, MLex, November 2, 2021.

President Biden’s Executive Order on Big Tech, The Markup, July 17, 2021.

‘Dark Patterns’ in Consumer Data Privacy Garner Policy Attention, Bloomberg Law, March 23, 2021.

Privacy Corner: Hartzog dives deep into tech’s impact on social justice, MLex FTC Watch, Feb. 2, 2021.

What Happens When You Click ‘Agree’?, The New York Times, Jan. 23, 2021.

Alan Mislove

The fight to get tech giants to reveal their data is coming to a head in Congress, The Washington Post.  Sept 30, 2021.

Should Facebook Be Held Liable If Its Advertising Algorithm Discriminates?, Mother Jones|Politics, June 9, 2021.

Anti-Hacking Law’s Limits Lift Legal Uncertainty for Researchers, Bloomberg Law, June 4, 2021.

Aleksandra Korolova

Facebook’s ad algorithms are still excluding women from seeing jobs, MIT Technology Review, April 9, 2021.

Facebook Algorithm Shows Gender Bias in Job Ads, Study Finds, The Wall Street Journal, Apr 9, 2021.

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2020

David Choffnes 

How to keep the smart speaker you got for the holidays and still keep some of your privacy, too, Recode, December 9, 2020.

Woodrow Hartzog

Resisting the rise of facial recognition, Nature, November 18, 2020.

Alan Mislove

Does Facebook still sell discriminatory ads?, The Markup, August 25, 2020.