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Rethinking Web for Affordability and Inclusion

Published: 04 November 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Today's Web remains too expensive for many Internet users, especially in developing regions. Unfortunately, the rising complexity of the Web makes affordability an even bigger concern as it stands to limit users' access to Internet services. We propose a novel framework and fairness metric for rethinking Web architecture for affordability and inclusion. Our framework provides systematic guidelines for adapting Web complexity based on geographic variations in mobile broadband prices and income levels. Preliminary evaluation shows the resulting architecture can achieve a better balance between Web quality and affordability while preserving user privacy.

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  • (2024)BlendNet: An Assisted Digital Distribution Platform for Underserved PopulationsProceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCAS/SIGCHI Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3674829.3675056(1-17)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
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    cover image ACM Conferences
    HotNets '21: Proceedings of the 20th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks
    November 2021
    246 pages
    ISBN:9781450390873
    DOI:10.1145/3484266
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Publication History

    Published: 04 November 2021

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    Author Tags

    1. Affordability
    2. Inclusion
    3. User Privacy
    4. Web

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    HotNets '21
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    HotNets '21: The 20th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks
    November 10 - 12, 2021
    Virtual Event, United Kingdom

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    View all
    • (2024)BlendNet: An Assisted Digital Distribution Platform for Underserved PopulationsProceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCAS/SIGCHI Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3674829.3675056(1-17)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
    • (2024)Uncovering the Hidden Data Costs of Mobile YouTube Video AdsProceedings of the ACM Web Conference 202410.1145/3589334.3645496(1138-1148)Online publication date: 13-May-2024
    • (undefined)Validated Digital Literacy Measures for Populations with Low Levels of Internet ExperiencesSSRN Electronic Journal10.2139/ssrn.4149495

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