Researchers uncovered major data discrepancies after deploying a custom measurement tool to evaluate identical browsing sessions across four prominent commercial providers. Tests conducted across 14 economies revealed that identical web requests resolved to wildly different domestic and international hosts depending on the provider chosen. For example, testing in Chile saw domestic server resolution swing from under a tenth of requests with one provider to nearly two-thirds with another. Consequently, single-provider testing can severely warp technical assessments of local digital autonomy.
Key points
Academic and technical assessments can substantially distort domestic internet traffic sh…: Academic and technical assessments can substantially distort domestic internet traffic shares when relying on single commercial networks.
Variations in provider routing and domain resolution directly influence regulatory evalua…: Variations in provider routing and domain resolution directly influence regulatory evaluations of international data-localization policies.
Studies examining foreign infrastructure dependencies must account for provider-specific…: Studies examining foreign infrastructure dependencies must account for provider-specific biases to ensure accurate measurement outcomes.
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How much of what we measure about the Internet reflects the Internet itself, and how much is shaped by the tools we use to collect those measurements? Researchers often use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to collect measurements through connections in different economies. This approach commonly assumes that VPNs in the same economy provide roughly the same view.
Our study shows that using different VPN providers can change which servers a browser connects to, and the economies in which those servers are located, even when connecting from the same economy. These provider-dependent differences can lead studies to overestimate or underestimate how much web traffic stays within an economy, how much crosses borders, and which economies appear to host the infrastructure serving users.
This means that a study using one VPN provider may conclude that web traffic is largely served within an economy, while another provider may make the same economy appear much more dependent on infrastructure outside of it. The choice of measurement tool can therefore shape not just the data collected, but also conclusions about data localization, cross-border exposure, and…
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