User validation of the perceived harm of semi-drive-by ads

Establish through user studies whether end users perceive semi-drive-by splash ads as problematic and determine the practical impact and perceived intrusiveness of these threats.

Background

The paper evaluates semi-drive-by ads primarily through controlled experiments, threshold-based detection, SDK analysis, and advertiser-side evidence. It does not directly measure how users experience or interpret accidental ad activations.

The authors explicitly identify the absence of end-user validation as an unresolved issue. User studies are needed to determine whether users regard these ads as problematic and to assess their practical impact and intrusiveness from the user perspective.

References

There is a general lack of validation from end users' perspectives, i.e., whether users actually perceive such ads as problematic, which calls for future user studies to validate the practical impact and perceived intrusiveness of these threats.

— When Ad Networks Misbehave: Understanding Risks of Semi-Drive-By Splash Ads  (2609.09574 - Wu et al., 9 Sep 2026) in Section 7, Discussion, subsection “Limitation”