research-article

Sleights of privacy: framing, disclosures, and the limits of transparency

Authors:

Alessandro Acquisti,

Laura Brandimarte,

George LoewensteinAuthors Info & Claims

SOUPS '13: Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security

Article No.: 9, Pages 1 - 11

https://doi.org/10.1145/2501604.2501613

Published: 24 July 2013 Publication History

Abstract

In an effort to address persistent consumer privacy concerns, policy makers and the data industry seem to have found common grounds in proposals that aim at making online privacy more "transparent." Such self-regulatory approaches rely on, among other things, providing more and better information to users of Internet services about how their data is used. However, we illustrate in a series of experiments that even simple privacy notices do not consistently impact disclosure behavior, and may in fact be used to nudge individuals to disclose variable amounts of personal information. In a first experiment, we demonstrate that the impact of privacy notices on disclosure is sensitive to relative judgments, even when the objective risks of disclosure actually stay constant. In a second experiment, we show that the impact of privacy notices on disclosure can be muted by introducing simple misdirections that do not alter the objective risk of disclosure. These findings cast doubts on the likelihood of initiatives predicated around notices and transparency to address, by themselves, online privacy concerns.

References

[1]

Acquisti A. (2004). Privacy in Electronic Commerce and the Economics of Immediate Gratification. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 21--29.

Digital Library

[2]

Acquisti A. (2009). Nudging Privacy: The Behavioral Economics of Personal Information. Security & Privacy, IEEE 7(6): 82--85.

Digital Library

[3]

Acquisti A, John L, and Loewenstein G. (2012). The Impact of Relative Standards on the Propensity to Disclose. Journal of Marketing Research, 49(2): 160--174.

[4]

Brandimarte L, Acquisti A, and Loewenstein G. (2013). Misplaced Confidences: Privacy and the Control Paradox. Social Psychological and Personality Science, Volume 4, Issue: 3, 340--347. http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/08/08/1948550612455931.

[5]

Broadbent DE. (1958). Perception and Communication. Elmsford, NY, US: Pergamon Press. Volume 340 pp.

[6]

DellaVigna S. (2007). Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field. NBER Working Paper No 13420.

[7]

Frey JH. (1986). An Experiment with a Confidentiality Reminder in a Telephone Survey. Public Opinion Quarterly. 50, 267--269.

[8]

FTC. (2012). Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: Recommendations for businesses and policy makers. http://www.ftc.gov/os/2012/03/120326privacyreport.pdf.

[9]

Hossain T and Morgan J. (2006). Plus Shipping and Handling: Revenue (Non) Equivalence in Field Experiments on eBay. The B. E. Journals in Economic Analysis and Policy: Advances in Economic Analysis and Policy. Volume 6, Issue: 2, 1--27.

[10]

Jensen C and Potts C. (2004). Privacy Policies as Decision-making Tools: an Evaluation of Online Privacy Notices. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM Press, New York, NY, 471--478.

Digital Library

[11]

John L, Acquisti A, and Loewenstein G. (2011). Strangers on a Plane: Context-Dependent Willingness to Divulge Sensitive Information. Journal of Consumer Research. Volume 37, Issue: 5, 858--873.

[12]

Joinson AN, Woodley A, and Reips UD. (2007). Personalization, Authentication and Self-disclosure in Self-administered Internet Surveys. Computers in Human Behavior. 23, 275--285.

[13]

Kahneman D, Knetsch, JL., and Thaler, RH (1990). Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem. Journal of political Economy, 98:6, 1325--1348.

[14]

Kahneman D and Tversky A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk. Econometrica. Volume 47, Issue: 2, 263--291.

[15]

Kelley PG, Bresee J, Cranor LF, and Reeder RW. (2009). A "Nutrition Label" for Privacy. SOUPS '09: Proceedings of the 5th Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security.

Digital Library

[16]

Krazit T. (2010). Google settles Buzz lawsuit for $8.5M. CNET. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20015620-265.html.

[17]

Liang KY and Zeger SL. (1986). Longitudinal Data Analysis Using Generalized Linear Models. Biometrika. Volume:73, Issue:1, 13--22.

[18]

McDonald A and Cranor L. (2009). The Cost of Reading Privacy Policies. I/S: A J. Law and Policy Inform. Soc. Volume 4, Issue:3, 543--568.

[19]

Oppenheimer DM, Meyvis T, and Davidenko N.(2009). Instructional Manipulation Checks: Detecting Satisficing to Increase Statistical Power. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Volume 45, Issue 4, 867--872.

[20]

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data (Sep. 23, 1980).

[21]

Phelps J, Nowak G, and Ferrell E. (2000). Privacy Concerns and Consumer Willingness to Provide Personal Information. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing. 19:1, 27--41.

[22]

Posner R. (1981). The Economics of Privacy. American Economic Review. Volume:71, Issue:2, 405--409.

[23]

Reitman R. (2012). FTC Final Privacy Report Draws a Map to Meaningful Privacy Protection in the Online World. Electronic Frontier Foundation https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/03/ftc-final-privacy-report-draws-map-meaningful-privacy-protection-online-world

[24]

Santalesa R. (2011). What's Next for thè FTC's Proposed Privacy Framework? Information Law Group. http://www.infolawgroup.com/2011/03/articles/data-privacy-law-or-regulation/whats-next-for-the-ftcs-proposed-privacy-framework.

[25]

Simon HA. (1955). A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice. Quarterly Journal of Economics. Volume 69, Issue:1, 99--118.

[26]

Singer E, Hippler H, and Schwarz N. (1992). Confidentiality Assurances in Surveys: Reassurance or Threat? International Journal of Public Opinion Research. 4:3, 256--268.

[27]

Stigler GJ. (1980). An Introduction to Privacy in Economics and Politics. Journal of Legal Studies. Volume 9, 623--44.

[28]

Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Yale University Press.

[29]

The White House. (2012). Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/privacy-final.pdf.

[30]

Tsai J, Egelman S, Cranor L, and Acquisti A. (2011). The Effect of Online Privacy Information on Purchasing Behavior: An Experimental Study. Information Systems Research. Vol. 22, Issue:2, 254--268.

Digital Library

[31]

Wakefield A and Fleming J. 2009. The Sage International Dictionary of Policing. Sage Publications, London.

[32]

Weisband S and Kiesler S. (1996). Self-disclosure on Computer Forms: Meta-analysis and Implications. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human factors in computing systems, 3--10.

Digital Library

Cited By

Vredenburgh K(2024)Transparency and Explainability for Public PolicyLSE Public Policy Review10.31389/lseppr.1113:3Online publication date: 4-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.31389/lseppr.111
Roemmich KCorvite SPyle CKarizat NAndalibi N(2024)Emotion AI Use in U.S. Mental Healthcare: Potentially Unjust and Techno-SolutionistProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36373248:CSCW1(1-46)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637324
Ghaiumy Anaraky RLi YCho HHuang DByrne KKnijnenburg BNov O(2024)Personalizing Privacy Protection With Individuals' Regulatory Focus: Would You Preserve or Enhance Your Information Privacy?Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642640(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642640
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Sleights of privacy: framing, disclosures, and the limits of transparency
1. Security and privacy
  1. Human and societal aspects of security and privacy
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Computing / technology policy
    1. Privacy policies

Recommendations

A Gap in Perceived Importance of Privacy Policies between Individuals and Companies
CONGRESS '09: Proceedings of the 2009 World Congress on Privacy, Security, Trust and the Management of e-Business

Although several studies have examined individuals’ privacy concerns and companies’ privacy policy disclosures, only a few studies examined whether customers’ privacy concerns are adequately addressed in companies’ privacy policy disclosures. This study ...
E-P3P privacy policies and privacy authorization
WPES '02: Proceedings of the 2002 ACM workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society

Enterprises collect large amounts of personal data from their customers. To ease privacy concerns, enterprises publish privacy statements that outline how data is used and shared. The Platform for Enterprise Privacy Practices (E-P3P) defines a fine-...
Privacy policy disclosures of behavioural tracking on consumer health websites
ASIST '13: Proceedings of the 76th ASIS&T Annual Meeting: Beyond the Cloud: Rethinking Information Boundaries

Many Internet users are seeking health information online, encountering significant privacy risks in the process. Historically, these risks are associated with personally identifiable information, but behavioural tracking presents a new and increasing ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

SOUPS '13: Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security

July 2013

241 pages

ISBN:9781450323192

DOI:10.1145/2501604

Conference Chairs:
Lujo Bauer
Carnegie Mellon University
,
Konstantin Beznosov
University of British Columbia
,
General Chair:
Lorrie Faith Cranor
Carnegie Mellon University

Copyright © 2013 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all 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 third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

Sponsors

Carnegie Mellon University: Carnegie Mellon University

In-Cooperation

SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 24 July 2013

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Funding Sources

Conference

SOUPS '13

Sponsor:

Carnegie Mellon University

SOUPS '13: Symposium On Usable Privacy and Security

July 24 - 26, 2013

Newcastle, United Kingdom

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 15 of 49 submissions, 31%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

86
Total Citations
View Citations
1,600
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)169
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)14

Reflects downloads up to 25 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Vredenburgh K(2024)Transparency and Explainability for Public PolicyLSE Public Policy Review10.31389/lseppr.1113:3Online publication date: 4-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.31389/lseppr.111
Roemmich KCorvite SPyle CKarizat NAndalibi N(2024)Emotion AI Use in U.S. Mental Healthcare: Potentially Unjust and Techno-SolutionistProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36373248:CSCW1(1-46)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637324
Ghaiumy Anaraky RLi YCho HHuang DByrne KKnijnenburg BNov O(2024)Personalizing Privacy Protection With Individuals' Regulatory Focus: Would You Preserve or Enhance Your Information Privacy?Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642640(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642640
Rochon J(2024)Enhancing Transparency Through Personal Information Management Systems: Current State of Service Offerings and Considerations for Further AdvancementsPrivacy and Identity Management. Sharing in a Digital World10.1007/978-3-031-57978-3_15(227-243)Online publication date: 23-Apr-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57978-3_15
Fischer-Hübner SKaregar FFischer-Hübner SKaregar F(2024)Challenges of Usable PrivacyThe Curious Case of Usable Privacy10.1007/978-3-031-54158-2_4(103-131)Online publication date: 20-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54158-2_4
Ochoa CRevilla M(2023)Framing Effects on Willingness to Participate in Geolocation-Based ResearchInternational Journal of Market Research10.1177/1470785323117010765:6(665-676)Online publication date: 11-Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.1177/14707853231170107
Fast VSchnurr DWohlfarth M(2023)Regulation of data-driven market power in the digital economy: Business value creation and competitive advantages from big dataJournal of Information Technology10.1177/0268396222111439438:2(202-229)Online publication date: 24-Feb-2023
https://doi.org/10.1177/02683962221114394
Bongard-Blanchy KSterckx JRossi ASergeeva AKoenig VRivas SDistler V(2023)Analysing the Influence of Loss-Gain Framing on Data Disclosure Behaviour: A Study on the Use Case of App Permission RequestsProceedings of the 2023 European Symposium on Usable Security10.1145/3617072.3617108(112-125)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3617072.3617108
Sas MDenoo MMühlberg J(2023)Informing Children about Privacy: A Review and Assessment of Age-Appropriate Information Designs in Kids-Oriented F2P Video GamesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36110367:CHI PLAY(425-463)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3611036
Corvite SRoemmich KRosenberg TAndalibi N(2023)Data Subjects' Perspectives on Emotion Artificial Intelligence Use in the Workplace: A Relational Ethics LensProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35796007:CSCW1(1-38)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3579600
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents