Beyond Linear TV: Exploring Tracking and Transparency Mechanisms in the European HbbTV Ecosystem

Böttger, Christian; Urban, Tobias; Demir, Nurullah; Hörnemann, Jan; Wressnegger, Christian; Große-Kampmann, Matteo; Hosseini, Henry; Utz, Christine; Pohlmann, Norbert: Hupperich, Thomas

Zusammenfassung

Hybrid Broadcast Broadband Television (HbbTV) is a growing entertainment technology that connects linear television programs with modern HTML5 applications to offer additional content such as games, videos, or online shopping. However, this enhanced functionality might also negatively impact user privacy, as it provides TV channels with new means of tracking users. Previous research examined security and privacy concerns stemming from security flaws or surveyed user awareness of privacy issues with HbbTV, but an in-depth analysis of the tracking and associated transparency mechanisms in this ecosystem has been missing. 
In this poster, we address this research gap and conduct a large-scale measurement study of tracking and transparency in the European HbbTV landscape.
We monitored over 350 TV channels for more than 400 hours to investigate the privacy impact of HbbTV applications, analyzing (1) common HbbTV tracking techniques, (2) the prevalence and interaction options of consent notices, and (3) the information provided in privacy policies.
The results show that the HbbTV tracking ecosystem is independent of its Web counterpart, that consent notices use the constraints of the ecosystem for nudging, and that privacy policies contain disclosures inconsistent with actual data practices.

Schlüsselwörter
HbbTV; Cookies; Tracker; Privacy Policy