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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

Published at: MDPI Journal of Imaging [Journal]

Mohan Krishna Sunkara

PhD Candidate

Department of Computer Science

Old Dominion University

Norfolk, VA

April 26, 2024 @mk344567, @WebSciDL

Special Issue in Image and Video Processing for Blind and Visually Impaired

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Introduction - Deceptive Ads' Impact on Blind Users

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

WS-DL 2024 Research Expo

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Complex HTML document object models (DOMs) and the absence of textual alternatives for visual components make web pages difficult to navigate for blind users.

Blind users are easily deceived by advertisements that seamlessly integrate with the web page content.

Many ad blockers fail to remove internal advertisements placed by websites.

Many websites are blocking ad blockers

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How do Blind People Interact with the Web?

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

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Read out Content on the screen and enable content navigation via keyboard shortcuts

@mk344567, @WebSciDL

[1]

[2]

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Dark Patterns and Deceptive Content

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

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Dark patterns manipulate user behavior, and deceptive online ads pose challenges, especially for blind users relying on screen readers.

Lack of visual context in ads can lead to unintentional interactions for blind users.

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[4]

[5]

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Ad Blocking and Ad Detection Efforts

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

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Efforts to improve ad accessibility are emerging but face challenges in implementation and adoption, highlighting the importance of detecting and addressing deceptive ads for blind users.

@mk344567, @WebSciDL

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[5]

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Interview study: Understanding Blind Users Perspectives on Deceptive Content

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

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  • Participant recruitment: 18 blind participants, aged 22 to 66, were recruited. They were familiar with screen readers and web browsing, with daily web usage.
  • Inclusion/exclusion criteria: Proficient in English, solely reliant on screen readers for web access. Excluded mildly visually impaired individuals and children under 18.
  • Interview setup: Remote Zoom interviews focused on the impact of ads and promotions on browsing experience.
  • Data collection: Recorded sessions with consent, no identifiable information retained. Encouraged live demonstrations of interaction issues.
  • Data analysis: Interview data analyzed using open and axial coding techniques to identify recurring insights.

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Interview Study Participant Demographics

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Interview Study: Findings

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

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  • Ad Blocker Challenges: Most blind users avoid ad blockers (15 out of 18) due to installation and configuration difficulties, causing accessibility issues and website access problems.
  • Increased Web Task Difficulty: Ads prolong web activities for blind users due to screen reader's linear navigation, making navigation tedious.
  • Encountered Ad Types: Common types include e-commerce deals, memberships, and native promotions, with the latter often deceptive.
  • Importance of Ad Location: Participants often accidentally select ads strategically placed to blend with content, leading to wasted effort.
  • Screen Reader Limitations: Screen readers inadequately describe ads, causing discrepancies in sighted and blind users' perceptions due to missing visual information.
  • Cautious Interaction and Sighted Assistance: Blind users are cautious with ads and often avoid interaction without sighted assistance for safety. Upon accidental selection, they promptly close the browser and delete downloaded files.

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Deceptive Content Detection Algorithm

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

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Algorithm Workflow

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

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Hand Crafted Features

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

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Deceptive Content-Detection Dataset

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

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  • Web Page Collection: 500 pages from diverse domains like travel, news, blogs, and e-commerce sites were collected for model training.

  • Web Page Annotation: Deceptive ads were manually annotated, primarily within specific DOM nodes. Custom data attribute data-deceptive="true/false" was added to these nodes.

  • Dataset Construction: Deceptive and non-deceptive ads were extracted based on the data-deceptive attribute. A supervised dataset (X, y) was created, ensuring balance with 1200 examples.

  • Availability: The annotated dataset and code for dataset construction are publicly accessible on GitHub and Google Drive.

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Model Training

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

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  • Hardware: Utilized NVIDIA V100 GPU with 128 GB memory per node for training.

  • Model: Built using Adam optimizer, binary cross-entropy loss function.

  • Training: Conducted over 25 epochs with 0.1 validation split, 500 steps per epoch.

  • Callbacks: Employed ReduceLROnPlateau, EarlyStopping to optimize training.

  • Optimization: Set parameters for callbacks to ensure efficient convergence.

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30% Surge in Precision, Recall, F1, and Accuracy

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Blind Screen-Reader Users

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Precision, Recall, F1 Score, Accuracy increased by approximately 30 percent

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Ablation study

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Blind Screen-Reader Users

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handcrafted features: α = “ARIA Attribute”, β = “Readability Score”, γ = “Is URL Secure”, δ = “URL

Host Name”, ε = “URL Active/Inactive”, and ζ = “Number of URL Redirections”.

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Discussion

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

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  • Limitations: The algorithm's applicability may be limited to specific dark patterns. Evaluation is constrained by a small sample size focused on English-language web pages. Represents an initial step in addressing usability issues.

  • Expansion Plans: Aim to expand datasets for validation, build annotated datasets for various dark patterns, and experiment with alternative deep neural architectures and pre-trained models.

  • Assistive Technology Development: Develop innovative browser extensions that replace deceptive ads with screen reader-friendly content, thereby enhancing accessibility and user safety for blind screen-reader users.

  • Societal Impact: Contributes to improving web accessibility for visually impaired individuals, enabling informed interactions with online ads, and fostering a more inclusive digital environment.

@mk344567, @WebSciDL

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Discussion

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

WS-DL 2024 Research Expo

  • Limitations: The algorithm's applicability may be limited to specific dark patterns. Evaluation is constrained by a small sample size focused on English-language web pages. Represents an initial step in addressing usability issues.

  • Expansion Plans: Aim to expand datasets for validation, build annotated datasets for various dark patterns, and experiment with alternative deep neural architectures and pre-trained models.

  • Assistive Technology Development: Develop innovative browser extensions that replace deceptive ads with screen reader-friendly content, thereby enhancing accessibility and user safety for blind screen-reader users.

  • Societal Impact: Contributes to improving web accessibility for visually impaired individuals, enabling informed interactions with online ads, and fostering a more inclusive digital environment.

@mk344567, @WebSciDL

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Discussion

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

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  • Limitations: The algorithm's applicability may be limited to specific dark patterns. Evaluation is constrained by a small sample size focused on English-language web pages. Represents an initial step in addressing usability issues.

  • Expansion Plans: Aim to expand datasets for validation, build annotated datasets for various dark patterns, and experiment with alternative deep neural architectures and pre-trained models.

  • Assistive Technology Development: Develop innovative browser extensions that replace deceptive ads with screen reader-friendly content, thereby enhancing accessibility and user safety for blind screen-reader users.

  • Societal Impact: Contributes to improving web accessibility for visually impaired individuals, enabling informed interactions with online ads, and fostering a more inclusive digital environment.

@mk344567, @WebSciDL

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Discussion

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

WS-DL 2024 Research Expo

  • Limitations: The algorithm's applicability may be limited to specific dark patterns. Evaluation is constrained by a small sample size focused on English-language web pages. Represents an initial step in addressing usability issues.

  • Expansion Plans: Aim to expand datasets for validation, build annotated datasets for various dark patterns, and experiment with alternative deep neural architectures and pre-trained models.

  • Assistive Technology Development: Develop innovative browser extensions that replace deceptive ads with screen reader-friendly content, thereby enhancing accessibility and user safety for blind screen-reader users.

  • Societal Impact: Contributes to improving web accessibility for visually impaired individuals, enabling informed interactions with online ads, and fostering a more inclusive digital environment.

@mk344567, @WebSciDL

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Summary

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

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  • Knowledge Gap: Explored impact of deceptive content on blind screen-reader users.
  • Interview Study: Engaged 18 blind participants, unveiling susceptibility to deceptive ads.
  • Detection Algorithm: Created an effective algorithm for identifying deceptive ads.
  • Performance: Achieved high F1 scores: 0.86 on a representative dataset, 0.88 on an "in-the-wild" evaluation of web pages.
  • Future Focus: Algorithms for other kinds of dark patterns.

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References:

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Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for

Blind Screen-Reader Users

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  1. NV Access. "About NVDA." Accessed on https://www.nvaccess.org/about-nvda/.
  2. Apple Support. "VoiceOver User Guide for Mac." Accessed on https://support.apple.com/guide/voiceover/welcome/mac.
  3. Freedom Scientific. "JAWS Screen Reader." Accessed on https://www.freedomscientific.com/products/software/jaws/.
  4. Google Play. "Ad Blocker for Android." Accessed on https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.snowlife01.android.ad_blocker&hl=en_US.
  5. Facebook. "Adblock by Adblock." Accessed on https://www.facebook.com/heres.adblock/.
  6. Priceline. Accessed on https://www.priceline.com/.
  7. KAYAK. Accessed on https://www.kayak.com/.

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