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Exploring user perceptions of online privacy disclosures

Exploring user perceptions of online privacy disclosures
Exploring user perceptions of online privacy disclosures
As a result of various industry regulations service providers such as websites and app developers are required to explain the ways in which they process the personal data of service users. These “privacy disclosures”, which aim to inform users and empower them to control their privacy, take several forms. Among these forms are the privacy policy, the cookie notice and, on smart phones, the app permission request. The interaction problems with these different types of disclosure are relatively well understood – habituation, inattention and cognitive biases undermine the extent to which user consent is truly informed. User understanding of the actual content of these disclosures, and their feelings toward it, are less well understood, though. In this paper we report on a mixed-methods study that explored these three types of privacy disclosure and compare their relative merits as a starting point for the development more meaningful consent interactions. We identify four key findings – heterogeneity of user perceptions and attitudes to privacy disclosures, limited ability of users to infer data processing outputs and risks based on technical explanations of particular practices, suggestions of a naïve model of “cost justification” rather cost-benefit analysis by users, and the possibility that consent interactions are valuable in themselves as a means to improve user perceptions of a service.
privacy, consent, cookies, app
Marreiros, Helia
98fa5fe4-bdb6-4737-8a82-69dc3d1b031c
Gomer, Richard
4447d323-1531-4966-ad07-329ab5323b12
Vlassopoulos, Michael
2d557227-958c-4855-92a8-b74b398f95c7
Tonin, Mirco
bd4b5fbe-5992-44cb-a702-9c768fdf9bc0
schraefel, m.c.
ac304659-1692-47f6-b892-15113b8c929f
Marreiros, Helia
98fa5fe4-bdb6-4737-8a82-69dc3d1b031c
Gomer, Richard
4447d323-1531-4966-ad07-329ab5323b12
Vlassopoulos, Michael
2d557227-958c-4855-92a8-b74b398f95c7
Tonin, Mirco
bd4b5fbe-5992-44cb-a702-9c768fdf9bc0
schraefel, m.c.
ac304659-1692-47f6-b892-15113b8c929f

Marreiros, Helia, Gomer, Richard, Vlassopoulos, Michael, Tonin, Mirco and schraefel, m.c. (2015) Exploring user perceptions of online privacy disclosures. IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet - ICWI 2015, , Dublin, Ireland. 07 - 08 Jun 2015. 12 pp .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

As a result of various industry regulations service providers such as websites and app developers are required to explain the ways in which they process the personal data of service users. These “privacy disclosures”, which aim to inform users and empower them to control their privacy, take several forms. Among these forms are the privacy policy, the cookie notice and, on smart phones, the app permission request. The interaction problems with these different types of disclosure are relatively well understood – habituation, inattention and cognitive biases undermine the extent to which user consent is truly informed. User understanding of the actual content of these disclosures, and their feelings toward it, are less well understood, though. In this paper we report on a mixed-methods study that explored these three types of privacy disclosure and compare their relative merits as a starting point for the development more meaningful consent interactions. We identify four key findings – heterogeneity of user perceptions and attitudes to privacy disclosures, limited ability of users to infer data processing outputs and risks based on technical explanations of particular practices, suggestions of a naïve model of “cost justification” rather cost-benefit analysis by users, and the possibility that consent interactions are valuable in themselves as a means to improve user perceptions of a service.

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More information

Published date: October 2015
Venue - Dates: IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet - ICWI 2015, , Dublin, Ireland, 2015-06-07 - 2015-06-08
Related URLs:
Keywords: privacy, consent, cookies, app
Organisations: Agents, Interactions & Complexity, Economy, Society and Space

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 381134
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/381134
PURE UUID: 7517e37c-7ef7-4d41-91d3-3f15be66b7fa
ORCID for Michael Vlassopoulos: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-3683-1466
ORCID for m.c. schraefel: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-9061-7957

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 07 Sep 2015 13:49
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:28

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Contributors

Author: Helia Marreiros
Author: Richard Gomer
Author: Mirco Tonin
Author: m.c. schraefel ORCID iD

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