Tracking sex: The implications of widespread sexual data leakage and tracking on porn websites

Abstract

This article explores tracking and privacy risks on pornography websites. Our analysis of 22,484 pornography websites indicated that 93% leak user data to a third-party. Tracking on these sites is highly concentrated by a handful of major companies, which we identify. We successfully extracted privacy policies for 3856 sites, 17% of the total. The policies were written such that one might need a 2-year college education to understand them. Our content analysis of the sample’s domains indicated 44.97% of them expose or suggest a specific gender/sexual identity or interest likely to be linked to the user. We identify three core implications of the quantitative results: (1) the unique/elevated risks of porn data leakage versus other types of data, (2) the particular risks/impact for “vulnerable” populations, and (3) the complications of providing consent for porn site users and the need for affirmative consent in these online sexual interactions.

State of Security and Privacy Practices of Top Websites in the East African Community (EAC)

“…Although users may think they are interacting with one entity from the address on the browser, most sites include code from other parties (third parties) to collect information about the user which users are typically unaware of [34]. We found that 3rd party interactions are much more compared to 1st party for the websites under study.…”

The Platformization of Gender and Sexual Identities: An Algorithmic Analysis of Pornhub

“…In this context, online pornography has also benefitted from various positive changes, such as the shift from a predominantly male audience to diverse publics (Ashton et al 2019), the emergence of a variety of sexual interests (Maziéres et al 2014), and the rise of communities usually considered illegitimate (Maris et al 2020). Nevertheless, online pornography maintains some critical issues, especially the fact that such forms of pornography tend to reproduce the male gaze and to foster hegemonic masculinity practices (Saunders 2020;Burke 2016).…”

Post- Panoptikon Çağı: Gözetimin Dijitalleşmesi ve Çevrimiçi Kimliğin Gizliliği Üzerine Bir Analiz

“…Myactivity.google.com aracılığı ile kişiler, oturumları açıkken internette yaptıkları bütün aramalara, hangi cihazlardan hangi uygulamaları açtıklarına, sesli etkinliklerine, konum geçmişlerine, fotoğraf konumlarına ve YouTube izleme ve arama kayıtları gibi pek çok veriye ulaşabilir. Yetişkin içerikli 22.484 adet çevrimiçi site üzerinde yapılan 2019 tarihli bir araştırmaya göre ise, kullanıcı verilerinin %93'ü üçüncü partilere sızmaktadır (Maris, Libert, & Henrichse, 2019). Aynı çalışmada, bazı sızıntıların kullanıcı siteye gizli modda (incognito mode) girse dahi olabileceği belirtilmektedir.…”