Preparation

All you need to prepare is a PC and an internet connection. Alternatively, this exercise can also take place on a tablet or smartphone.

Firefox browser with "Lightbeam" plugin installed to visualise external content on web pages. 

Method / Process description

This exercise uses the exercise "AB 2: Tracking and personalised advertising" of the learning material "Data set - data treasure? Why data protection and data security are important". Published by klicksafe.de. 

Getting started -1

Let the participants surf the internet or call up some websites together. Observe the advertisements and discuss with the group:

• How annoying do you find advertising on websites?
• Have you ever left a website with interesting content because the advertising bothered you too much?
• Does it bother you that when you search with e.g. Google, advertising also appears in the search results?
• Have you ever intentionally clicked on an advertisement? And why? 
• Would you be willing to pay money to stop seeing advertisements on certain websites?
• Take Wikipedia, for example: Would you use Wikipedia less if advertisements also appeared there? Would you pay a small annual fee (e.g. 12 €) to be able to continue using Wikipedia without advertising? 

Getting started -2 (optional)

Show the pupils this excerpt from the Hollywood film "Minority Report".
Search via search engines: „Minority report – Mall Scene“

Minority Report
In a near future, murderers are arrested with the help of technology before they can commit their crime ("predictive policing"). The main character is a police officer who makes such arrests and is himself targeted by the investigators. Since people are recognised by means of eye scanners, he has to undergo a dangerous eye operation in the course of the film. "Predictive policing" is already being tested today. You can find more about it here: https://netzpolitik.org/tag/predictive-policing

Control questions: What is shown in the clip? 

• If necessary, briefly explain the film and "predictive policing".
• The protagonist's eyes are scanned, he is greeted personally ("Good evening, John Anderton"), and he receives individual Anderton"), and he receives individual advertising.

Elaboration -1

How does tracking work? 

As the technical process of surfing is probably not familiar, the following story can be read out in advance. (Alternatively, it can be used as a role play, with one participant taking on each role). 

Learning material "Data set - data treasure? Why data protection and data security are important". (page 18)

Illustration

To visualise tracking, use the Firefox plug-in "Lightbeam", which they have to download in advance. It makes third-party providers visible who place their content on websites we visit and thus learn that we have been there. These third parties are often companies that collect our data in the background and may use or trade it. If you are unable to do the following live demonstration, take a screenshot in advance.

Use Lightbeam to demonstrate how data collection works.

Calling up e.g.: booking.com, spiegel.de, faz.net, amazon.de, bild.de

Note: News sites usually use many trackers and are therefore particularly suitable for this demo.

• Visited pages are displayed in Lightbeam as a circle (with logo).
• These websites are surrounded by third-party providers that offer their own content on the visited pages. Many of them are so-called "trackers" and follow us across several pages.
• The trackers are shown as triangles and cluster around the websites we actually visit. Their connection to a page we visit is represented by a line.
• When searching and calling up websites using Google, it can be recognised that there are sometimes connections between independent websites via trackers (individual triangles). This shows that both pages are reloading Google content (e.g. Google Analytics, an analysis tool that is integrated on many pages for user analyses). Google thus knows which different pages (e.g. bild.de and booking.com) the same user is visiting, and these can then advertise in a personalised way.

Pro and con discussion "personalised advertising"

Below are two opposing statements each. Read them out one after the other and discuss with the participants which one they would choose.

Part1: 

• Personalised advertising is harmless and even has advantages because you see the things that interest you and providers can make more money.
• The problem with advertising networks like Google is that detailed user profiles are gradually created that say a lot about a person because information that individual sites have about us is linked together. Companies like insurers or credit banks are interested in this data, as are your future employer or states - they can assess you better this way.

Part2:

• It is very useful if, as a golfer, a search engine query on the subject of "Golf" no longer shows you cars (VW Golf)
• The fact that results on the internet are personalised in an automated way brings with it the danger of a "filter bubble". People only see what might interest them and thus overlook other things. This can also have negative effects on the formation of political opinion.

Download material

This exercise uses the exercise "AB 2: Tracking and personalised advertising" of the learning material "Data set - data treasure? Why data protection and data security are important". (page13) Published by klicksafe.de. 

Download the teaching materials (in German) at https://www.klicksafe.de/materialien/datensatz-datenschatz-warum-datenschutz-und-datensicherheit-wichtig-sind/

Roleplay game translated into englisch

References

(c) Data set - data treasure? Why data protection and data security are important.

Publisher: Klicksafe.de

klicksafe is co-funded by the European Union http://ec.europa.eu/saferinternet

Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND

The material is licensed under the Creative Commons licence above, i.e. non-commercial use and distribution is permitted provided the source klicksafe and the website www.klicksafe.de are acknowledged.