Spy Watch: A Tool for Transparency in Web Tracking

This is in part a position paper and in part a description of a Google Chrome privacy extension we built. We make the case that our first goal when tackling the issue of privacy and third party tracking of user’s browsing should be to increase transparency. We describe a browser extension we have built, that enables users to see which third party has observed what about them. We discuss the results of a survey we conducted which suggests that users are divided on the issue of online web tracking. While some users expressed strong uncomfort at being tracked, others expressed tolerance. User opinion was also divided on how to block third party sites.