Turning the Tide on Dark Pools? Towards Multi-Stakeholder Vulnerability Notifications in the Ad-Tech Supply Chain

Yash Vekaria; Rishab Nithyanand; Zubair Shafiq

doi:10.48550/arxiv.2406.06958

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Turning the Tide on Dark Pools? Towards Multi-Stakeholder Vulnerability Notifications in the Ad-Tech Supply Chain

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Turning the Tide on Dark Pools? Towards Multi-Stakeholder Vulnerability Notifications in the Ad-Tech Supply Chain

Yash Vekaria, Rishab Nithyanand and Zubair Shafiq

arXiv.org

Cornell University

06/11/2024

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2406.06958

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Preprint (Author's original)This preprint has not been evaluated by subject experts through peer review. Preprints may undergo extensive changes and/or become peer-reviewed journal articles. Open Access

Abstract

Online advertising relies on a complex and opaque supply chain that involves multiple stakeholders, including advertisers, publishers, and ad-networks, each with distinct and sometimes conflicting incentives. Recent research has demonstrated the existence of ad-tech supply chain vulnerabilities such as dark pooling, where low-quality publishers bundle their ad inventory with higher-quality ones to mislead advertisers. We investigate the effectiveness of vulnerability notification campaigns aimed at mitigating dark pooling. Prior research on vulnerability notifications has primarily focused on single-stakeholder scenarios, and it is unclear whether vulnerability notifications can be effective in the multi-stakeholder ad-tech supply chain. We implement an automated vulnerability notification pipeline to systematically evaluate the responsiveness of various stakeholders, including publishers, ad-networks, and advertisers to vulnerability notifications by academics and activists. Our nine-month long multi-stakeholder notification study shows that notifications are an effective method for reducing dark pooling vulnerabilities in the online advertising ecosystem, especially when targeted towards ad-networks. Further, the sender reputation does not impact responses to notifications from activists and academics in a statistically different way. In addition to being the first notification study targeting the online advertising ecosystem, we are also the first to study multi-stakeholder context in vulnerability notifications.

Computer Science - Computers and Society

Computer Science - Cryptography and Security

Computer Science - Multiagent Systems

Computer Science - Networking and Internet Architecture

Computer Science - Social and Information Networks

Details

Title: Subtitle: Turning the Tide on Dark Pools? Towards Multi-Stakeholder Vulnerability Notifications in the Ad-Tech Supply Chain
Creators: Yash Vekaria - University of California, Davis
Rishab Nithyanand - University of Iowa
Zubair Shafiq - University of California, Davis
Resource Type: Preprint
Publication Details: arXiv.org
Publisher: Cornell University; Ithaca, New York
DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2406.06958
eISSN: 2331-8422
Language: English
Date posted: 06/11/2024
Academic Unit: Law Faculty; Computer Science; Center for Social Science Innovation
Record Identifier: 9984643648802771

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