Information security (InfoSec) is a popular and growing area of study in many computing degrees. This paper addresses web security in the sense of web tracking and related privacy issues. The format described is a course module that incorporates these as well as legal aspects in the context of two case studies.

A thoughtful introductory section motivates the rest of the paper by looking at online advertising and how voluntary sharing of personal information via social media differs from commercial collection and use of data captured via web browsing and other online interactions. The second section gives an overview of the technologies for web tracking, as well as privacy concerns and approaches to preventing web tracking. The third section describes the actual course module and case studies that are included. The last two sections deal with the actual experiences in using the module and the course assessment, as well as conclusions and where future work is planned. There are 38 relevant references.

This paper has a number of interesting ideas and observations that could appeal to others who teach courses that focus either on information security or on web technologies and related matters.