About

Online advertising systems like Google or Yahoo increasingly violate your privacy. They gather information about you, such as the websites you visit and your location, and use it to profile you and target ads to you. This has led to increasing complaints and calls for regulation from privacy and consumer protection groups.

We are proposing an advertising system that is far more private. This system, called Privad, is based on two main principles:

  • Most information about you is kept on your own computer and not leaked out.
  • The information that does leave your computer is proxied through an intermediary. Neither the intermediary nor the advertising company obtain enough information to violate your privacy.

We have built a prototype of our system. If you are a Firefox user, you can help us with our research by installing the addon below.

For more details, see the system overview, and addon details.

Downloads

Firefox Add On

Papers

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