IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/epolin/v48y2021i4d10.1007_s40812-021-00192-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The privacy paradox: a challenge to decision theory?

Author

Listed:
  • Jacopo Arpetti

    (University of Rome Tor Vergata)

  • Marco Delmastro

    (Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni)

Abstract

In the present research we propose a methodology—to our knowledge, the first attempt in this sense—that considers information asymmetries when the degree of privacy concerning individuals is detected. Such filtering (“privacy concerns” degree as a function of “data awareness” level) allows to highlight the individuals’ desired level of privacy—and related privacy concerns—analyzing whether individuals’ data disclosure decisions are taken consciously or as the result of a “blind” (unaware) choice, considering data gathering practices—related level of consciousness. Previous works may have been biased due to the lack of such observation. Our measurement has been conducted taking into account the individuals’ awareness with respect to data collection techniques performed by mobile applications in Italy. As a matter of fact, if individuals’ privacy preferences among consumers are not distributed in a uniform way, this results in socially regressive outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacopo Arpetti & Marco Delmastro, 2021. "The privacy paradox: a challenge to decision theory?," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 48(4), pages 505-525, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:epolin:v:48:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s40812-021-00192-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s40812-021-00192-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40812-021-00192-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40812-021-00192-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mike Thelwall, 2008. "Social networks, gender, and friending: An analysis of MySpace member profiles," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(8), pages 1321-1330, June.
    2. Mike Z. Yao & Ronald E. Rice & Kier Wallis, 2007. "Predicting user concerns about online privacy," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(5), pages 710-722, March.
    3. Alessandro Acquisti & Curtis Taylor & Liad Wagman, 2016. "The Economics of Privacy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(2), pages 442-492, June.
    4. Jentzsch, Nicola, 2016. "State-of-the-Art of the Economics of Cyber-Security and Privacy," EconStor Research Reports 126223, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    5. Tamara Dinev & Paul Hart, 2006. "An Extended Privacy Calculus Model for E-Commerce Transactions," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 61-80, March.
    6. Caroline Lancelot Miltgen & Dominique Peyrat-Guillard, 2014. "Cultural and generational influences on privacy concerns: a qualitative study in seven european countries," Post-Print hal-01116067, HAL.
    7. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Morlok, Tina & Matt, Christian & Hess, Thomas, 2017. "Privatheitsforschung in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften: Entwicklung, Stand und Perspektiven," Working Papers 1/2017, University of Munich, Munich School of Management, Institute for Information Systems and New Media.
    2. Fast, Victoria & Sachs, Nikolai & Schnurr, Daniel, 2021. "Privacy Decision-Making in Digital Markets: Eliciting Individuals' Preferences for Transparency," 23rd ITS Biennial Conference, Online Conference / Gothenburg 2021. Digital societies and industrial transformations: Policies, markets, and technologies in a post-Covid world 238020, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    3. Bleier, Alexander & Goldfarb, Avi & Tucker, Catherine, 2020. "Consumer privacy and the future of data-based innovation and marketing," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 466-480.
    4. Shuilin Liu & Xudong Lin & Xiaoli Huang & Hanyang Luo & Sumin Yu, 2023. "Research on Service-Driven Benign Market with Platform Subsidy Strategy," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-21, January.
    5. Jin, Ginger Zhe & Wagman, Liad, 2021. "Big data at the crossroads of antitrust and consumer protection," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    6. Ruwan Bandara & Mario Fernando & Shahriar Akter, 2020. "Privacy concerns in E-commerce: A taxonomy and a future research agenda," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 30(3), pages 629-647, September.
    7. Jacopo Arpetti & Antonio Iovanella, 2020. "Towards more effective consumer steering via network analysis," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 359-380, December.
    8. Beke, Frank T. & Eggers, Felix & Verhoef, Peter C. & Wieringa, Jaap E., 2022. "Consumers’ privacy calculus: The PRICAL index development and validation," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 20-41.
    9. Xudong Lin & Shuilin Liu & Xiaoli Huang & Hanyang Luo & Sumin Yu, 2021. "Platform Revenue Strategy Selection Considering Consumer Group Data Privacy Regulation," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(22), pages 1-24, November.
    10. Huarng, Kun-Huang & Yu, Tiffany Hui-Kuang & Lee, Cheng fang, 2022. "Adoption model of healthcare wearable devices," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    11. Hoon S. Choi & Darrell Carpenter & Myung S. Ko, 2022. "Risk Taking Behaviors Using Public Wi-Fi™," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 965-982, June.
    12. Sharma, Priyanka & Wagman, Liad, 2020. "Advertising and Voter Data in Asymmetric Political Contests," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    13. Dengler, Sebastian & Prüfer, Jens, 2021. "Consumers' privacy choices in the era of big data," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 499-520.
    14. Omid Rafieian & Hema Yoganarasimhan, 2021. "Targeting and Privacy in Mobile Advertising," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(2), pages 193-218, March.
    15. Daron Acemoglu & Ali Makhdoumi & Azarakhsh Malekian & Asu Ozdaglar, 2022. "Too Much Data: Prices and Inefficiencies in Data Markets," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 218-256, November.
    16. Chen, Yongmin, 2020. "Improving market performance in the digital economy," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    17. Tobias Regner, 2021. "Crowdfunding a monthly income: an analysis of the membership platform Patreon," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 45(1), pages 133-142, March.
    18. Caleb S. Fuller, 2019. "Is the market for digital privacy a failure?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(3), pages 353-381, September.
    19. Daniel Krähmer & Roland Strausz, 2023. "Optimal Nonlinear Pricing with Data-Sensitive Consumers," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 80-108, May.
    20. Chen, S. & Doerr, S. & Frost, J. & Gambacorta, L. & Shin, H.S., 2023. "The fintech gender gap," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Digital markets; Asymmetric information; Implicit transactions; Data regulation; Privacy preferences; Privacy paradox;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D52 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Incomplete Markets
    • E71 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on the Macro Economy
    • L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:epolin:v:48:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s40812-021-00192-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.