In the context of a myriad of mobile apps which collect personally identifiable information (PII) and a prospective market place of personal data, we investigate a user-centric monetary valuation of mobile PII. During a 6-week long user study in a living lab deployment with 60 participants, we collected their daily valuations of 4 categories of mobile PII (communication, e.g. phonecalls made received, applications, e.g. time spent on different apps, location and media, e.g. photos taken) at three levels of complexity (individual data points, aggregated statistics and processed, i.e. meaningful interpretations of the data). In order to obtain honest valuations, we employ a reverse second price auction mechanism. Our findings show that the most sensitive and valued category of personal information is location. We report statistically significant associations between actual mobile usage, personal dispositions, and bidding behavior. Finally, we outline key implications for the design of mobile services and future markets of personal data.
In recent years, researchers have analyzed the factors that can influence a person's disclosure behavior and economic valuation of personal information. Demographic characteristics, such as gender and age, have been found to affect disclosure attitudes and behavior. Several studies have identified gender differences concerning privacy concerns and consequent information disclosure behaviors: for example, women are generally more protective of their online privacy @cite_22 @cite_18 . Age also plays a role in information disclosure behaviors: in a study on Facebook usage, Christofides @cite_38 found that adolescents disclose more information.
@cite_38 @cite_18 @cite_22
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In studies of people's privacy behavior, the extent of disclosure of personal information is typically measured as a summed total or a ratio of disclosure. In this paper, we evaluate three information disclosure datasets using a six-step statistical analysis, and show that people's disclosure behaviors are rather multidimensional: participants' disclosure of personal information breaks down into a number of distinct factors. Moreover, people can be classified along these dimensions into groups with different ''disclosure styles''. This difference is not merely in degree, but rather also in kind: one group may for instance disclose location-related but not interest-related items, whereas another group may behave exactly the other way around. We also found other significant differences between these groups, in terms of privacy attitudes, behaviors, and demographic characteristics. These might for instance allow an online system to classify its users into their respective privacy group, and to adapt its privacy practices to the disclosure style of this group. We discuss how our results provide relevant insights for a more user-centric approach to privacy and, more generally, advance our understanding of online privacy behavior. Social media profiles are telling examples of the everyday need for disclosure and concealment. The balance between concealment and disclosure varies across individuals, and personality traits might partly explain this variability. Experimental findings on the relationship between information disclosure and personality have been so far inconsistent. We thus study this relationship anew with 1,313 Facebook users in the United States using two personality tests: the big five personality test and the self-monitoring test. We model the process of information disclosure in a principled way using Item Response Theory and correlate the resulting user disclosure scores with personality traits. We find a correlation with the trait of Openness and observe gender effects, in that, men and women share equal amount of private information, but men tend to make it more publicly available, well beyond their social circles. Interestingly, geographic (e.g., residence, hometown) and work-related information is used as relationship currency, in that, it is selectively shared with social contacts and is rarely shared with the Facebook community at large. People of all ages are increasingly exposed to online environments that encourage them to share and connect with others. However, there is a perception that adolescents are particularly susceptible to these cues and share more online than do other age groups. With a group of 288 adolescents and 285 adults, we explored differences and similarities in use of Facebook for information sharing and use of the controls to protect their privacy. Adolescents reported disclosing more information on Facebook and using the privacy settings less than adults. Despite these differences, the results indicated that adolescents and adults were more similar than different in the factors that predicted information disclosure and control. Adolescents spent more time on Facebook, which partially mediated the relationship between group (adolescents vs. adults) and disclosure. Self-esteem partially mediated the relationship between group and information control, with adults having higher self-esteem than adolescents. We examined factors that influence an individual's attitude and decisions about the information handling practices of corporations. Results from a survey of 425 consumers suggested that the hypothesized model was an accurate reflection of factors that affect privacy preferences of consumers. The results provide important implications for research and practice. Our study should contribute by initiating an integrative stream of research on the impact of IT and other factors on information privacy perception. For practitioners, our findings suggested that consumers hold corporations, not the IS, responsible for any inappropriate use of personal information. Organizations, therefore, must be proactive in formulating and enforcing information privacy policy in order to address consumers' concerns.