PrivacyScore is a transparency tool that seeks to provide web users with an overview of the privacy and security state of websites. It allows anyone to scan arbitrary websites for the presence of tracking and advertising services, and to verify if the website supports modern security standards such as modern versions of HTTPS, among other things.
A core feature is the comparative analysis of multiple websites, where a number of different websites from the same field are evaluated and ranked against each other. This allows users to gain an idea for how different companies rank compared to each other, and may serve as an incentive to website operators to improve privacy on their websites and thus their rankings compared to their competitors.
It serves as a basis for research into the current state of privacy in the web, but has also been used for research into privacy perceptions at companies and an investigation into legal issues surrounding unsolicited scans of websites. It can also serve as a basis for research into different methods of visualizing privacy states for users.
PrivacyScore was developed in Area C of the RTG, in cooperation with researchers from the Universities of Hamburg, Bamberg and Siegen.
To find out more and try the system yourself, visit PrivacyScore.org.