Do (Not!) Track Me: Relationship Between Willingness to Participate and Sample Composition in Online Information Behavior Tracking Research

Abstract

This paper offers a critical look at the promises and drawbacks of a popular, novel data collection technique—online tracking—from the point of view of sample composition. Using data from two large-scale studies about political attitudes and information consumption behavior carried out in Germany and Switzerland, we find that the likelihood of participation in a tracking study at several critical dropout points is systematically related to the gender, age, and education of participants, with men, young, and more educated participants being less likely to dropout of the studies. Our findings also show that these patterns are incremental, as changes in sample composition accumulate over successive study stages. Political interest and ideology were also significantly related to the likelihood of participation in tracking research. The study explores some of the most common concerns associated with tracking research leading to non-participation, finding that they also differ across demographic groups. The implications of these findings are discussed.

You are how (and where) you search? Comparative analysis of web search behavior using web tracking data

“…Similarly, the fact that top-5 results attract around 90% of all clicks and more than 97% of search visits do not go beyond page 1 of search outputs, underscores the influence search rankings have on user information consumption. The similarity of this finding to the observations regarding the result ranking made by previous studies over a decade ago [ 6 , 7 , 12 , 19 ], underscores the persistence of the observed phenomenon. It can undoubtedly contribute to the "rich-gets-richer" bias and search concentration, but also stresses the importance of reliability and accuracy of the top results.…”

“…The demographic distributions in the samples are as follows: self-reported gender: CH—43.8% female, DE—44.8% female; age: CH—mean = 43.8, median = 42, DE—mean = 49.3, median = 51; education: CH—3.6% obligatory education, 54.9%—full secondary education, 41.6%—tertiary education, for DE corresponding numbers are 12.9, 51.3, 35.8%; income: CH—7.2% not reported, 37.7% below 3999CHF, 37.1% between 4000 and 6999 CHF, 17.9% above 7000 CHF; DE—3.1% not reported, 48.4% below 1999 EUR, 44.8% from 2000 to 4999 EUR, 3.8% above 5000 EUR. The resulting samples deviate from the actual composition of the population of the corresponding countries—e.g., in our samples, men and people with higher levels of education are over-represented as compared to the actual population; such skewness in the participants willing to participate in web tracking studies was observed in our case and with another study conducted in Germany using a similar recruitment procedure in 2021 [ 6 ]. As extensively discussed in [ 6 ], this is linked to different concerns different groups of participants had about the tracker.…”

“…The resulting samples deviate from the actual composition of the population of the corresponding countries—e.g., in our samples, men and people with higher levels of education are over-represented as compared to the actual population; such skewness in the participants willing to participate in web tracking studies was observed in our case and with another study conducted in Germany using a similar recruitment procedure in 2021 [ 6 ]. As extensively discussed in [ 6 ], this is linked to different concerns different groups of participants had about the tracker. For this study, it is important to note that the main reasons of the participants for dropping out of the study and not participating in tracking were concerns about their perceived computer skills and the safety of their devices and data [ 6 ]; hence, our findings might under-represent the behaviors of more privacy−conscious participants and those who perceive themselves as less technologically savvy.…”

“…As extensively discussed in [ 6 ], this is linked to different concerns different groups of participants had about the tracker. For this study, it is important to note that the main reasons of the participants for dropping out of the study and not participating in tracking were concerns about their perceived computer skills and the safety of their devices and data [ 6 ]; hence, our findings might under-represent the behaviors of more privacy−conscious participants and those who perceive themselves as less technologically savvy. For the potential ways to mitigate these sampling issues in future studies, interested readers can refer to Ref.…”

“…For the potential ways to mitigate these sampling issues in future studies, interested readers can refer to Ref. [ 6 ].…”