Inconsistencies in Darknet Researches

The darknet terminology is not used consistently among scientific research papers. This can lead to difficulties in regards to the applicability and the significance of the results and also facilitates misinterpretation of them. As a consequence, comparisons of the different works are complicated. In this paper, we conduct a review of previous darknet research papers in order to elaborate the distribution of the inconsistent usage of the darknet terminology. Overall, inconsistencies in darknet terminology in 63 out of 97 papers were observed. The most common statement indicated that the dark web is a part of the deep web. 19 papers equate the terms darknet and dark web. Others do not distinguish between dark web and deep web, or between deep web and darknet.