Google worked with a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to develop a tool: CookieEnforcer. This uses artificial intelligence to automatically disable non-essential cookies on pop-ups that manipulate users when validating them.
For the moment, the tool is only at the internal project stage, but the teams plan to make it available to the general public one day, without however specifying a date.
Future software needed
Since the implementation of the GDPR in Europe, you have most likely had to face the cookie validation window when you visited a website. While some are quite clear in the choices they offer, others do not hesitate to voluntarily lose users so that they authorize non-essential cookies that undermine respect for their privacy.
It is this kind of practices that CookieEnforcer wants to fight. According to the research team, it would take an average of 12 clicks for a user to opt out of non-essential cookies. Too high a figure, therefore, and from which the tool is based. But, since the layout of these pop-ups differs from site to site, CookieEnforcer uses a machine learning model to learn and analyze the necessary steps.
Once everything is ready for the software, it acts in three stages. First, it detects the location of the cookie notification, then it predicts the actions needed to disable non-essential cookies, and finally, it disables them by simulating mouse clicks. According to the team, who was able to test the software as a Chrome extension, CookieEnforcer is 91% effective with very few errors or false positives in its results. We can’t wait for the tool to arrive, even if we have no doubt that companies will quickly find a way around it.
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Protecting your identity: the new hobbyhorse of free security solutions
Source : The Register
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