9. Hypothesis
At some point in the future "BlackHat Analytics" or “Faking
Conversions” might become more widespread. Because...
1. WA is becoming more important for
business decision making.
2. Automatic performance based PPC bid
management system are becoming more
widely used.
3. Increase in online competitiveness &
more revenue at stake.
10. Definition
Intentional act of distorting, deleting, unethically
using, or hijacking WA data using technical or
legal loopholes; with the goal of making financial
gains, or obtaining a competitive advantage.
Phil Pearce 2009
11. Evil tracking from pre-2010
Referral backlink log spam
(depreciated SEO technique)
Ad behavioural targeting
(Interest Based Stalking)
Remarketing Ads (Return
Visitor Stalking) - Starwars
stalker
Safari 3rd party POST
cookie (Preference
bypassing)
NEW
“Headless
Browser” spam
Flash cookie respawn
(Zombie Cookies)
Visited links CSS hack
(History Sniffing)
GA log spam
(Spider visit loading JS)
EverCookie
(all of the above+)
13. The EverCookie was
so difficult to delete:
even NSA considered using it!
Source: http://www.slideshare.net/jonbonachon/tor-stinks
But they decided
they did not need it ;)
15. Classification
Intent Accidental Malicious
Target Own website Competitors website
Data collection PurposeSame Different purpose
Scale Niche Mass effect
Impact Data uneffected GA Account deletion
Intent Accidental Malicious
Target Own website
Competitors
website
Purpose of
data
collection
Same
purpose
Different
purpose
Scale Niche Mass effect
Impact
Data
uneffected
GA Account
deletion
16. Bad/Unreliable
Measure Data
Classifications
Malintent
Cashback cookies
(e.g Quidco)
Flash Cookie
Flash Cookie
Respawn
EverCookie
CSS history
sniffing
Speed checking
robots
Google Wifi incident
Hostname spam
Google (not provided)
Phone call logs
App error logs
Fake
conversions
Referral log spam
Unintentional
or Accidental
Good/Accurate
Measure Data
19. Liability for Privacy & Security
Is the agency liable?
BUT agency is responsible for
• Uphold professional standards (e.g. GACP status)
• Pro-active client relationship
Local laws say... Website Owner is responsible
(not Agency or Vendor)
No.
22. Its all about the money! €€€
Affiliate networks looking to increase
CPA and attract new Affiliate.
Online News website looking to retain
users & sell stories (e.g. NYT)
Banner networks looking to improve
CPM & reduce cookie deletion rates
and overcome keywords “not provided”.
Sustained CPC bidding wars
Big data
24. Meet the new Matt Cutts ...
Google Privacy “Red” team soon to be hired in 2013
following FTC settlement.
Mission to discovering and prioritizing subtle, unusual,
and emergent privacy & security flaws
https://www.google.com/about/jobs/locations/mountain-
view/engineering/systems/data-privacy-engineer-
privacy-red-team-mountain-view.html
Hired WebSpam fighter to Force quality
improvements in 2000.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/about-me/
“Red team” leaderMatt Cutts
26. F@#K - GA account deleted!
You will not collect any data that
personally identifies an individual such
as a:
full name
email address
billing information
or other data which can be
reasonably linked to such
information by Google
You must post a Privacy Policy which provides
notice that your use of cookies is to collect
traffic data.
You must not circumvent any privacy features
(e.g, an opt-out) that are part of GA.
www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html
27. Why cant GA just remove the
bad PII data?
Free WA packages unable to remove PII without
deleting whole GA accounts!
Raw logs are only stored for ~30days
Right to be forgotten was introduced after GA was
designed.
(although this might be possible with Universal
which is user-centric, not visitor-centric)
28. “Sensitive” data also is an issue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_id
entifier#Examples_of_PID
29. Don’t use userID that contain PII…
R2D2
(random userID)
KennyBaker
(Full Name
used for userID)
31. Solution/Counter-measure for Accidental PII
Or use temporary robots.txt fix:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /*utm_medium=email
Disallow: /*gmail.com
Noarchive: /*utm_medium=email
Noarchive: /*gmail.com
Add exclude parameters to
GWT:
email, mail
utm_source, utm_medium,
utm_campain, utm_content,
utm_keyword, _ga
32. Legal Disclaimer: The purpose of this example is to demonstrate a hole in all Analytics
platforms, and how to patch this hole. It is used for TESTING purposes ONLY.
By reading this example you agree to NOT use this on a live website, and agree that I (Phil
Pearce) and NOT liabilities for and damage that a website owner may suffer arising out of
this example & tool.
If you are in any doubt, please seek the advice of the Google legal team
www.google.com/contact/ or your local legal counsel BEFORE testing.
Note: This issue has been raised on the GACP private discussion forum 6months ago, prior
to this event.
Disclaimer
34. Intentional Data damage
WARNING: Don’t Try this at Home!
javascript:_gaq.push(['_setAccount','UA-xxxxxx-1'],[' _addTr ans','8148350','affiliati on','-9223372036854775807' ,'-9223372036854775807','0.00','-','- ','-'],['_addItem','SKU 00001','8148350','BIG refund','-','-9223372036854775807','1'],['_trackTr ans']);
http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmwv=5.4.6&utms=44&utmn=393079074&utmhn=domain.com&utmt=tran&utmtid=8148350&utmtst= affiliation&utmtto=-9223372036854775807&utmttx=-9223372036854775807&utmtsp=0.00&utmtci=-&utmtrg=-&utmtco=-&utmcs= UTF-8&utmsr =1366x768&utm vp=1366x550&utmsc=24- bit&utmul=en- us&utmje=1&utmfl=11.9 r900&utmdt=TITLE&utmhid=509485053&utmr =-&utmp=/&utmht=1385061484294&utmac=UA-XXXXX-1&utmcc=__utma=251194116.2116214072.1385060410.1385060410.1385060410.1; __utmz=251194116.1385060410.1.1.utmcsr=( direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none);&utmu=qjAL~
35. Solution/Counter-measure for intention Data Damage
Tool to manually fix…
bit.ly/bigintegerfix
Legal Disclaimer: The purpose of this example is to demonstrate a hole in all Analytics platforms, and how to patch
this hole. It is used for TESTING purposes ONLY.
By reading this example you agree to NOT use this on a live website, and agree that I (Phil Pearce) and NOT liabilities
for and damage that a website owner may suffer arising out of this example & tool.
If you are in any doubt, please seek the advice of the Google legal team www.google.com/contact/ or your local legal
counsel BEFORE testing.
Note: This issue has been raised on the GACP private discussion forum 6months ago, prior to this event.
36. Fine calculator
.
Fine = (No. users effected * Scale badness * Size of Brand)
less
(Website Risk assessment
+ Vendor privacy self certification)
37. Sony €320K fine by ICO for email &
password beach.
Adobe password Breach expected to be
£ALOT more!
http://www.ico.gov.uk/news/latest_news/2013/ico-news-
release-2013.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vZHg2F4u5Q
Here is a Fine example
49. Do class action lawsuits exist in Europe
or are they only in US?
Question…
50. Class Action Prosecutors:
also now active in UK!
e.g. Google UK vs Olswang Class Action
(Safari 3rd party cookie bypassing on iOS)
51. First every UK “group action” vs Google UK on
Feb 2013 claiming 10m Safari users effected
www.googlelawsuit.co.uk and www.facebook.com/SafariUsersAgainstGooglesSecretTracking
UK test case, could set
precedent for
EU class-action cases!
52. Successful class action raids in
US…
Settlement funds 50:50 between users and Class Action
Lawyers.
Previous settlements 70:30, thus smaller % cut for Class
Action Lawyers, but huge number users in claim.
€13
million hit
€13
per user
€7.5
million
53. W3C republic – A new hope for Truce
Must be UNSET by default
DNT user signal
54. Browser ignore the W3C consensus on DNT
Firefox: Talk`s about a blockade of
3rd party cookies
MS: Windows8 IE10 rollsout DNT=1
which is UNSET by default!
55. Firefox Lost battle: Too many False positive
Firefox says its Han`s
are tied for a few month
on 3rd party cookies
Dark Side too
powerful ;)
56. MS IE10 DNT=1 browser
signal
ON by default…
http://www.ypolicyblog.com/policyblog/2012/10/26/dnt/
http://www.admonsters.com/article/apache-ignores-ie10-dnt-signal
…IE10
DNT signal
grounded
…Both Apache &
Yahoo threaten to
ignore DNT=1
from IE10…
58. 2 years reign!
Infighting & disunity between
Advertisers & Privacy Advocates.
Definition of Tracking (DNT) still
not defined!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/05/do_not_track_w3c_ads_privacy/
W3C republic
59. Group “almost”
disbanded
Peter Swire - Chief resign
Jonathan Mayer – Firefox resigns
Digital Advertisers Association –
leaves group!
Old W3C republic
Key member:
Thomas Roessler
joins Google!
61. New Imperial Advertising Principles
AdChoices proposed as
replacement for W3C`s DNT
Source:
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/daa-convene-new-do-not-track-group-updated-153023
62. Privacy in the Universe restored!
Users have choice & freedom within
the Global Imperial Empire
64. The Dark Star
Also affiliate networks start
building Device Signature
conversion tracking tools:
We (tradedoubler.com) are looking at options such as device recognition,
using non-personally identifiable information that is freely available from a
user’s device. Using advanced matching algorithms a single device can
be recognized at the point of impression/click and conversion without the
use of cookies. http://www.tradedoubler.com/uk-en/blog/firefox-22-
cookies/ [Jun 2013]
BIG Data Centre with ability to
process:
1. Device Signature tracking
2. UserID respawn
3. Custom Remarketing
67. Browser (excluding Chrome) secretly
move to anonymise device signatures
So that all
customised devices
extensions look the
same!
Thus…
destroying any
shadow tracking
68. Facebook(Borg) & Google (Empire)
counter attack…
Use Force-browser power, to set
DNT=0 (Do Target Me)
when user signs into service (messenger/gmail)
70. Headless Browser robotic crawler
causing havok in GA data!
Impossible to differentiate from a real user!
www.webmasterworld.com/search_engine_spiders/4619880.htm
http://nodejsmodules.org/new/tags/spider
Examples of
Headless
Browsers:
• Zombie.js
• Phantom.js
• HtmlUnit
Definition: A
headless browser is a
web browser
WITHOUT a user
interface.
72. Polarisation
Dark get darker
(e.g. IE fav icon 3rd party
cookies bypassing browser
hole/exploit)
White get whiter
(e.g. duckduckgo.com
& ixquick.com, mezzobit.com
increase in usage)
73. Return of the Jedi Strike
2015 invasion of Privacy officers
Forced 5% global revenue power
(max €100 million)
University Research divisions
expand use of Taint Droids
Note: Anti-train droid link:
http://gsbabil.github.io/AntiTaintDroid/
source: bringyourownit.com/2014/04/09/eu-data-protection-reform-the-100-million-euro-fine/
& www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25825690
74. $ Fines/Lawsuits
Low Chance of
Blackhat
Detection
High Chance of
Blackhat
Detection
Balance of Power
Ad Revenue $
Browsers Neutral
(in the middle)
Google Data Empire
Facebook Borg
Class Action
Prosecutors
Jedi Enforcers
83. That’s means YOU need to agree
not break the analytics code of honour
AND make sure no one else abuses the system!
Good Bad
Report any
thing that
looks a bit
“Grey”
84. Standards & Self regulation
• Vendor built-in privacy & miss-use protection
• Adwords & Adsense ToS levels
• Affiliate network guidelines
• WAA Code of Conduct
• GA qualified individual
• GAP certified partner
• WAA Certified Ethical Analyst
• Risk assessment / Compliance audit
• Third party reviews & compliance automated monitoring
87. ONE exception…
(false U.i.O sighting)
Track
me!
If user..
Reads tracking message &
they still say… YES, track me!
Then its not UiO
Just Quantitative
self – tracking
agreement
88. Need for Industry standards and Honey
pots / seeds tests.
Forced Training & Accreditation (e.g.
Certified Analyst or MOWA member)
Google Adwords privacy cpc tax and
Google organic SERP ranking bonus
(SSL as ranking signal is a start)
89. Fixes (GA profile filters)
GA profile filters:
Hostname include filter: (^|.)yourdomain.com$
ISP location exclude Ask.com bot: ^(inktomi corporation|iac search
and media europe ltd|iac search media inc|yahoo! inc.|facebook
inc.|stumbleupon inc.|dub6 ec2|site confidence test agent servers|site
?confidence|apache ltd.|nielsen netratings|affinity internet inc|microsoft corp)$
Top content report - Contains box:
(email|add|postcode|zipcode|tel) or [?&](.+)=(.*)gmail.com
Weekly scheduled report to check for the above
Check data stored in
utm_content, User-defined, CustomFields & Event fields
Check all GA profiles including Raw Data profile for
PII`s, and add exclude parameters where necessary.
90. Fixes (process changes)
Account protection
Training for developers and marketers
Check Scheduled reports not sending to
unknown users.
Limit number of Number of Admin users
Enable 2 stage authentication if possible.
Looks for unusual variances of data spikes in
GA (especially new visits to homepage)
CPA audits (GA vs Affiliate report)
93. I`ll be track-ed (still)
No! California just asks for DNT visibility
(i.e. Does your server read the DNT signal?)
94. Prevention
Use a tag management system, that is configured with
digitalData layer privacy features enabled (see appendix)
Try to use POST request rather than GET request where
possible, or a form action=/thankyoupage.html
Keep pdf reader, flash & java updated
Lockdown FTP to fixed set of static IP`s, use long passwords,
and ideally use 2stage Authentication for GTM write-access.
95. Recent development… Privacy Vigilantism
Good:
• Egypt Gov “disconnected the
Internet” to control decedents
• Anonymous coordinated with
decedents to re-setup internet
communications in Egypt
Bad:
• They ignore the law!
• Young & inexperienced
• “Splitter groups” & “out of control”
- hacking random websites!
Small Group of Users are revolting: Anonymous
96. This is how things should be…
(Closing Remarks)
Google acts even
more responsibly
Facebook introduces a more
human(friendly) privacy interface
Users should not needing to rely
on despicable class action lawyers
Enforcers become just watchers
not needing to intervene
97. May the Data be on your side!
Party Tonight:
19:30 NVMERI
20:10 MyCool King +
DJ Trush
21:00 Charlie Straight
22:15 midi lidi
98. May 4th be with you!
Party Tonight:
19:30 NVMERI
20:10 MyCool King +
DJ Trush
21:00 Charlie Straight
22:15 midi lidi
But.. be careful of the 5th November!
Sith
May the force
And 25th December - I feel your presents
99. Please Sign up to be a force for good…
Google for “DAA code of ethics” or “MOA code of conduct” Please Sign!
www.digitalanalyticsassociation.org/codeofethics
www.moaweb.nl/Richtlijnen/internationale-gedragscodes-en-richtlijnen/2012-09-17%20GRBN%20Code%20Comparison.pdf/view
102. DISCLAIMER – I`m not a lawyer
GA terms of service
http://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html
http://www.google.com/analytics/learn/privacy.html
Privacy Trouble shooter
http://support.google.com/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1291807&page=ts.cs
Report a privacy concern
http://www.google.com/contact/
Contact Google Analytics
http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/request.py?hlrm=en&contact_type=contact_policy
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/8206?contact=1&rd=1
Report a security concern
security@google.com
http://www.google.com/security.html
103. Discussion Questions
How much is your data worth?
Can you afford to drive traffic in the dark with no
insight?
Is PII or sensitive data or urls being accidentally
tracked?
Can competitors detect that PII data is being sent
into GA?
Are you in a very competitive industry?
When was the last time you audited your WA
installation?
Are you capturing data that easily allows an
individual to be “linked” or “re-identified” by Google
(e.g. detailed demographic data example, or
Netflix.com + IMDB.com example1 or example2)
104. Related presentations & resources
.
CookieTAB virus screenshots
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w0gprycb23ajguw/2011_03_18%20CookieTAB%20virus%20scr
eenshots%20.pptx
Effect of EU Cookie law on US
businesses: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ces1m53mm7o4gmm/2012-10-
04%20GAUGE%20Boston%20-
%20Effect%20of%20EU%20Cookie%20law%20on%20US%20organisations.pptx
Recipe for a Cookie Law
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l9n3gchusdv57bm/2011_03_18%20Recipe%20for%20a%20Co
okie%20Law%20by%20Phil%20Pearce%20.pptx
Cookie law Implementation Examples
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7q8qfxesk44tpkc/Implimentation%20Examples%20by%20Phil
%20Pearce%202012_03_18.pptx
Cookie compliance Audit - Example.docx
https://www.dropbox.com/s/idyrql6c1aniaw6/01%20UK%20Cookie%20compliance%20Audi
t%20-%20Example.docx
CookieLaw research in 90mb Dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uapu90d7rc2uxl1/2012_Cookie_Law_Resources_Folder_40mb
_Download.zip
105. Appendix
External privacy feedback mechanisms:
safeharbor.export.gov/companyinfo.aspx?id=16626
feedback-form.truste.com/watchdog/request?url=www.google.com
www.bbb.org/sanjose/business-reviews/internet-services/google-in-mountain-view-ca-
214105/file-a-complaint
www.networkadvertising.org/contact-support/report-problem/i-would-report-violation-of-nai-
code-nai-member-company-2
www.snapsurveys.com/swh/surveylogin.asp?k=133707671186 [ICO.gov.uk form]
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-dashboard/ [W3C feedback mechanism]
www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#cat=0-14-54-1281&geo=US&date=today%203-
m&cmpt=q [user web searches in category of “privacy” per country]
Security & Privacy prize of upto £13K offered by Google for detecting holes:
www.google.com/about/appsecurity/reward-program/
blog.chromium.org/2012/08/announcing-pwnium-2.html
Example XSS hole in GA found in 2008: derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Full-Disclosure/2008-
12/msg00200.html
Open Source feedback techniques
fourthparty.info/data
appanalysis.org/download.html
Free to check cookie databases:
www.cookielaw.org/cookie-search.aspx?domain=http://www.facebook.com
www.cookiecert.com/cookies-for-facebook.com
privacyscore.com/score_details/2a03b4fe8d9d4eb8b4fb0ccf356cbaaa/showcase
Hinweis der Redaktion
Welcome :)
Fun fact
Definition: A headless browser is a web browser WITHOUT a user interface. They are frequently used for quality control or to extract data from pages, but have the power to be used for other purposes. Headless browsers, are able to parse JavaScript. They can click on links and even cope with downloads.