Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for Blind Screen-Reader Users
Advertisements have become commonplace on modern websites. While ads are typically designed for visual consumption, it is unclear how they affect blind users who interact with the ads using a screen reader. Existing research studies on non-visual web interaction predominantly focus on general web br...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2023-11-01
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| Series: | Journal of Imaging |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2313-433X/9/11/239 |
| _version_ | 1797458779121385472 |
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| author | Satwik Ram Kodandaram Mohan Sunkara Sampath Jayarathna Vikas Ashok |
| author_facet | Satwik Ram Kodandaram Mohan Sunkara Sampath Jayarathna Vikas Ashok |
| author_sort | Satwik Ram Kodandaram |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Advertisements have become commonplace on modern websites. While ads are typically designed for visual consumption, it is unclear how they affect blind users who interact with the ads using a screen reader. Existing research studies on non-visual web interaction predominantly focus on general web browsing; the specific impact of extraneous ad content on blind users’ experience remains largely unexplored. To fill this gap, we conducted an interview study with 18 blind participants; we found that blind users are often deceived by ads that contextually blend in with the surrounding web page content. While ad blockers can address this problem via a blanket filtering operation, many websites are increasingly denying access if an ad blocker is active. Moreover, ad blockers often do not filter out <i>internal</i> ads injected by the websites themselves. Therefore, we devised an algorithm to automatically identify contextually deceptive ads on a web page. Specifically, we built a detection model that leverages a multi-modal combination of handcrafted and automatically extracted features to determine if a particular ad is contextually deceptive. Evaluations of the model on a representative test dataset and ‘in-the-wild’ random websites yielded F1 scores of <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>0.86</mn></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>0.88</mn></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>, respectively. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T16:43:02Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-742bc8855fea459dbc9520cf3ee831ff |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2313-433X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T16:43:02Z |
| publishDate | 2023-11-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Imaging |
| spelling | doaj.art-742bc8855fea459dbc9520cf3ee831ff2023-11-24T14:50:03ZengMDPI AGJournal of Imaging2313-433X2023-11-0191123910.3390/jimaging9110239Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for Blind Screen-Reader UsersSatwik Ram Kodandaram0Mohan Sunkara1Sampath Jayarathna2Vikas Ashok3Department of Computer Science, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, USADepartment of Computer Science, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, USADepartment of Computer Science, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, USADepartment of Computer Science, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, USAAdvertisements have become commonplace on modern websites. While ads are typically designed for visual consumption, it is unclear how they affect blind users who interact with the ads using a screen reader. Existing research studies on non-visual web interaction predominantly focus on general web browsing; the specific impact of extraneous ad content on blind users’ experience remains largely unexplored. To fill this gap, we conducted an interview study with 18 blind participants; we found that blind users are often deceived by ads that contextually blend in with the surrounding web page content. While ad blockers can address this problem via a blanket filtering operation, many websites are increasingly denying access if an ad blocker is active. Moreover, ad blockers often do not filter out <i>internal</i> ads injected by the websites themselves. Therefore, we devised an algorithm to automatically identify contextually deceptive ads on a web page. Specifically, we built a detection model that leverages a multi-modal combination of handcrafted and automatically extracted features to determine if a particular ad is contextually deceptive. Evaluations of the model on a representative test dataset and ‘in-the-wild’ random websites yielded F1 scores of <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>0.86</mn></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>0.88</mn></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>, respectively.https://www.mdpi.com/2313-433X/9/11/239extraneous contentdeceptive advertsad blockersdark patternsblind usersscreen readers |
| spellingShingle | Satwik Ram Kodandaram Mohan Sunkara Sampath Jayarathna Vikas Ashok Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for Blind Screen-Reader Users Journal of Imaging extraneous content deceptive adverts ad blockers dark patterns blind users screen readers |
| title | Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for Blind Screen-Reader Users |
| title_full | Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for Blind Screen-Reader Users |
| title_fullStr | Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for Blind Screen-Reader Users |
| title_full_unstemmed | Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for Blind Screen-Reader Users |
| title_short | Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for Blind Screen-Reader Users |
| title_sort | detecting deceptive dark pattern web advertisements for blind screen reader users |
| topic | extraneous content deceptive adverts ad blockers dark patterns blind users screen readers |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2313-433X/9/11/239 |
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