Privacy lost in online education: analysis of web tracking evolution

Digital tracking poses a significant and multifaceted threat to personal privacy and integrity. Tracking techniques, such as the use of cookies and scripts, are widespread on the World Wide Web and have become more pervasive in the past decade. This paper focuses on the historical analysis of tracking practices specifically on educational websites, which require particular attention due to their often mandatory usage by users, including young individuals who may not adequately assess privacy implications. The paper proposes a framework for comparing tracking activities on a specific domain of websites by contrasting a sample of these sites with a control group consisting of sites with comparable traffic levels, but without a specific functional purpose. This comparative analysis allows us to evaluate the distinctive evolution of tracking on educational platforms against a standard benchmark. Our findings reveal that although educational websites initially demonstrated lower levels of tracking, their growth rate from 2012 to 2021 has exceeded that of the control group, resulting in higher levels of tracking at present. Through our investigation into the expansion of various types of trackers, we suggest that the accelerated growth of tracking on educational websites is partly attributable to the increased use of interactive features, facilitated by third-party services that enable the collection of user data. The paper concludes by proposing ways in which web developers can safeguard their design choices to mitigate user exposure to tracking.