Secrets and Likes: The Drive for Privacy and the Difficulty of Achieving It in the Digital Age

Abstract

We review different streams of social science literature on privacy with the goal of understanding consumer privacy decision making and deriving implications for policy. We focus on psychological and economic factors influencing both consumers' desire and consumers' ability to protect their privacy, either through individual action or through the implementation of regulations applying to firms. Contrary to depictions of online sharing behaviors as careless, we show how consumers fundamentally care about online privacy, and present evidence of numerous actions they take to protect it. However, we also document how prohibitively difficult it is to attain desired, or even desirable, levels of privacy through individual action alone. The remaining instrument for privacy protection is policy intervention. However, again for both psychological and economic reasons, the collective impetus for adequate intervention is often countervailed by powerful interests that oppose it.

Accessing the Influence of Perceived Value on Social Attachment: Developing Country Perspective

“…Some researchers tried to evaluate the impact of information disclosure and privacy options of social media on user privacy control. Acquisti et al (2006) conducted a survey of more than 4,000 Facebook users to study the patterns of information disclosure in online social networks and their impact on privacy. The survey results show that although students' privacy may be attacked in many ways, only a small percentage of students have changed their privacy preferences.…”

Acceptance of data sharing in smartphone apps from key industries of the digital transformation: A representative population survey for Germany

“…Many apps require consumers to disclose personal information to actors of the private or public sector in order to use the apps and the benefits they offer. For the data-providing consumers, there is consequently a trade-off between preferences for their own data protection and the potential benefits of data disclosure (Acquisti et al, 2020(Acquisti et al, , 2016(Acquisti et al, , 2015Kokolakis, 2017). For app providers, it is essential to know which features of an app influence users' privacy preferences to what extent.…”

“…Without such knowledge, users' privacy concerns may not be adequately addressed, and users may be skeptical about using an app or could decide against using an app at all. Since individuals' online privacy preferences are highly heterogeneous (Acquisti et al, 2020(Acquisti et al, , 2016(Acquisti et al, , 2015 and context specific (John et al, 2011) knowledge on specific acceptance drivers is crucial. Acquisti et al (2016) describe the disclosure of personal data and the protection of this data as two sides of the same coin.…”

“…Since the early 2000s, various scientific studies have investigated which factors influence privacy preferences in different contexts (for overviews of these studies see Acquisti et al, 2020Acquisti et al, , 2016Acquisti et al, , 2015Kokolakis, 2017). The results of these studies show, for instance, that the willingness to share data is influenced by the number of potential recipients (Schudy and Utikal, 2017), the content of the data collected (Cloos et al, 2019;Benndorf and Normann, 2018;Schudy and Utikal, 2017), and the survey framing (John et al, 2011).…”

Acceptance of Data Sharing in Smartphone Apps from Key Industries of the Digital Transformation: A Representative Population Survey for Germany

“…Companies can also suffer from disadvantages, such as costs resulting from data theft (Hinz et al, 2015), or misuse of data by members of their own company or by members of affiliated companies (Acquisti et al, 2016). Since the early 2000s, various scientific studies have investigated which factors influence privacy preferences in different contexts (for overviews of these studies see Acquisti et al, 2020Acquisti et al, , 2016Acquisti et al, , 2015Kokolakis, 2017). The results of these studies show, for instance, that the willingness to share data is influenced by the number of potential recipients (Schudy and Utikal, 2017), the content of the data collected (Cloos et al, 2019;Benndorf and Normann, 2018;Schudy and Utikal, 2017), and the survey framing (John et al, 2011).…”