Beyond the Request: Harnessing HTTP Response Headers for Cross-Browser Web Tracker Classification in an Imbalanced Setting

The World Wide Web's connectivity is greatly attributed to the HTTP protocol, with HTTP messages offering informative header fields that appeal to disciplines like web security and privacy, especially concerning web tracking. Despite existing research employing HTTP/S request messages to identify web trackers, HTTP/S response headers are often overlooked. This study endeavors to design effective machine learning classifiers for web tracker detection using HTTP/S response headers. Data from the Chrome, Firefox, and Brave browsers, obtained through the traffic monitoring browser …

beyond browser classification connectivity cs.ai cs.cr cs.lg header headers http identify informative messages privacy protocol request research response security tracker trackers tracking web web security web trackers web tracking world world wide web