1.
Nikolay Novozhilov
Chief Data Scientist | Wego.com
Tracking the user
in the world of privacy

2.
What we do
Wego is the Largest Travel Metasearch across MENA, SEA & India
Come and
search for flights
and hotels
Leave to book with
a partners who has
the best offer

3.
Privacy is full of scandals

4.
Advertising vs Privacy
VS

5.
Advertising wins!
Google Facebook
AppleTwitter

6.
Good Cookie!

7.
Advertising vs Privacy
VS
Cookies are not cross-domain! We can work with that!

8.
Bad Cookie!
The global network of tags and ad networks

9.
Advertising vs Privacy
VS
Block 3rd party cookies!
Block all cookies!
Ever heard of browser
fingerprinting?

10.
Browser Fingerprinting
• Isolated storage, flash-cookies, PNG Cookies
• Fuzzy hash: user_agent + IP + timezone +
number of monitors + …
• Browser Plugins
• Installed Fonts
• Canvas (rendering triangles with gradient)
Authors claim 94-97% accuracy

11.
Browser Fingerprinting
• Isolated storage, flash-cookies, PNG Cookies
• Fuzzy hash: user_agent + IP + timezone +
number of monitors + …
• Browser Plugins
• Installed Fonts
• Canvas (rendering triangles with gradient)
Authors claim 94-97% accuracy
S L O O O W !

12.
In Apps world – Advertiser
IDs
• Apple – IDFA, IDFV
• Google – AAID
US surveys: 17% of users block
IDFA
Our data: only 8% of users do it

13.
The Death of Cookies
Cookie:
• 3rd party JS code runs
on every website
• Lots of connections
on slow networks
• User data stored
locally
Advertiser ID:
• Only ID is shared
.
• All data exchange on
server-to-server
• Sophisticated
processing on server
My prediction: Advertiser IDs introduced in all
major browsers in the next 2 years

14.
Identity based advertising
• “Big guys” have all the control: Facebook,
Google, Apple, Twitter
• Cross-device
• Location data
• Social graph interests
Even more scary!!!

15.
Target ads to invite a girl to
movies?

16.
Is Differential Privacy the solution?

17.
The real question!
Are you more tired of irrelevant ads?
OR
Are you more scared of ads ”tailored to
your interests”?

18.
Conclusions
• Hopefully user tracking becomes more civilized
• Also more monopolized / vendor-dependent
• I expect more strict policies from vendors:
 No targeting for specific individual
 Limitations of frequency and timing
 Interest based, not keyword based content

19.
nik@wego.com
Thanks!