Conflicting Privacy Preference Signals in the Wild

Abstract

Privacy preference signals allow users to express preferences over how their personal data is processed. These signals become important in determining privacy outcomes when they reference an enforceable legal basis, as is the case with recent signals such as the Global Privacy Control and the Transparency & Consent Framework. However, the coexistence of multiple privacy preference signals creates ambiguity as users may transmit more than one signal. This paper collects evidence about ambiguity flowing from the aforementioned two signals and the historic Do Not Track signal. We provide the first empirical evidence that ambiguous signals are sent by web users in the wild. We also show that preferences stored in the browser are reliable predictors of privacy preferences expressed in web dialogs. Finally, we provide the first evidence that popular cookie dialogs are blocked by the majority of users who adopted the Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control standards. These empirical results inform forthcoming legal debates about how to interpret privacy preference signals.

DarkDialogs: Automated detection of 10 dark patterns on cookie dialogs

“…HCI studies test how design choices-now called dark patterns-impact the consent rate [3], [24], [45], [53], [70]. Other studies try to conceptualise and build alternative systems to manage user consent [36], [54], [64], [73], such as privacy preference signals [31]- [33], [75], [76]. Another approach is to measure how real world consent dialogs are designed, which is also the goal of our study.…”