Your Browsing Behavior for a ! Big Mac: Economics of Personal Information Online

transcript

Your Browsing Behavior for a��Big Mac: Economics of Personal

Information Online

Juan Pablo Carrascal * Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Christopher Riederer * Columbia University

Vijay Erramilli Telefónica Research

Mauro Cherubini ** Telefónica Research

Rodrigo de Oliveira Telefónica Research

* Research conducted while working at Telefónica Research ** The author is currently working at Google Inc.

Introduction

Collected Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is being economically exploited by internet based

companies in multiple ways!

Introduction

But what do Internet users think about this?!!

Introduction

For users to understand monetization of their PII, they should do a cost-benefit analysis!

Introduction

But general the monetary value of PIIis hard to measure!!

Research Questions

•  RQ1: What monetary value do users assign to different types of PII while being online?!

•  RQ2: What are the perceptions of users vis-à-vis their PII being monetized, improving existing services and for personalized advertisements?!

Contributions

•  We used a refined Experience Sampling Method to extract online PII valuation!

•  We found that users valuated their browsing behavior information at around 7€ (~18 Reais)!

•  Valuation of Offline PII was significantly higher than Online PII, and valuation of PII related to Social and Finance websites was significantly higher than Search and News!

•  Even though users do not like the monetization of their PII, they would accept certain goods in exchange.!

Outline

Challenges / Methodology!Procedure!Measures!Results!Implications for design!!!

Challenges

Alice! Researcher!

PII $?

Alice!

Challenges Retrospective!

recall!Validity of!

PII valuation!Engagement during participation /!

Burden of the probing!Honesty of!valuation!

Methodology

A refined Experience Sampling Method (rESM) approach provides optimal recall!

Retrospective!recall!

Validity of!PII valuation!

Engagement during participation /!Burden of the probing!

Honesty of!valuation!

Methodology

•  We improved the validity by capturing the web browsing context by means of a Firefox plugin popup!

•  This plugin enables the use of pertinent questions about the actions, at the time they were performed, that we want to capture in the first place!

Methodology

•  To create engagement, we created an auction game where participants could trade their PII!

•  We reduced the burden by limiting frequency and offering the possibility to skip the probe!

Methodology

To promote honesty of valuation, we used a reverse second-price auction mechanism!!!!

Bids! Payout!Winning

(lowest)!

Outline

Challenges / Methodology!Procedure!Measures!Results!Implications for design!

Participants

Recruitment through popular Spanish web portals!Demographics:!–  168 participants, 18 to 58 years old

(mean = 31.83, s = 8.15)!–  Well balanced across education and income levels!–  Living in Spain (94% of Spanish nationality)!

Requirements:!–  Firefox!–  Only person using Firefox

on their computer!–  Install the plugin!

Procedure

From the userʼs perspective:!

A participant visits a website!

The Plugin classifies!the visited website!

The Plugin selects questions corresponding to the category of the website!and prompts the user with a

Pop-up!

The Plugin collects participantʼs answers and

sends them to the back-end!

Procedure

From the back-end perspective:!

After 20 bids are received… !

… an auction is run!

All participants of the auction (both those who sold their PII and those who did not) are

notified of their results using neutral language!

All bids are received by the back-end!

Outline

Measures – Popup questions

Auction questions!–  Context independent!–  Context dependent*!

Online privacy perception questions!–  Context independent!–  Context dependent*!

* Customized according to the detected category!of the website!!

Measures - Auction questions examples

… data about your financial transaction(s) !(FINANCE)!… photo(s) you uploaded to this website ! !(SOCIAL)!… keywords you used in your last search(es) !(SEARCH)!

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !… and so on!

… information about your age, gender, salary and address? ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !(related to offline PII)!

… details about your presence on this website?! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !(related to third party trackers)!

Context independent:!

Context dependent:!

“What is the minimum amount of money you would accept in exchange of… “

Measures - Exit questionnaire

We asked some questions to clarify previously obtained results:!•  Reasons for highest/lowest bids!•  Knowledge of revenue/cost of online services!•  Trust of PII management!•  Further privacy perception questions!

Outline

Results

RQ1: Users valuated their browsing behavior information at around 7€ (18 reais)!

RQ1: What monetary value do users assign to different types of PII while being online?!

Results

RQ1: Users value offline PII more!and online PII less (25€ vs. 7€)!

Results

RQ1: Users tend to value online PII related to Finance (15.5€) and Social networking (12€)

more than Search (2€) and News (2€).!!

Results

RQ1: Users do not distinguish between quantity of PII, but type!

Results

RQ2: Users do not like monetization of their PII!!

RQ2: What are the perceptions of users vis-à-vis their PII being monetized, improving existing services and for

personalized advertisements?!

Results

uency (%

RQ2: But they would accept certain goods in exchange.!

Results

RQ2: Users mainly trust themselves to manage the monetization of their PII. In second place, they trust

government and in third place banks and telcos!!

Results

Most participants gave reasons of fair value or worthiness of the information for their highest/

lowest bids instead of trying to game the system!

Outline

Implications for design

There should be adequate incentives (economic or otherwise) for the adoption of privacy solutions!

Implications for design

Online companies should be transparent in explaining their need to monetize on PII!

Contributions

•  We used a refined Experience Sampling Method to extract online PII valuation!

•  We found that users valuated their browsing behavior information at around 7€ (~18 Reais)!

•  Valuation of Offline PII was significantly higher than Online PII, and valuation of PII related to Social and Finance websites was significantly higher than Search and News!

•  Even though users do not like the monetization of their PII, they would accept certain goods in exchange.!

Thank you. ��Questions?��

Juan Pablo Carrascal!jp.carrascal@upf.edu!

Christopher Riederer!mani@cs.columbia.edu!

Vijay Erramilli!vijay@tid.es!

Mauro Cherubini!mauro.cherubini@acm.org!

Rodrigo de Oliveira!oliveira@tid.es!

Your Browsing Behavior for a ! Big Mac: Economics of Personal Information Online

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