IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/epolit/v33y2016i3d10.1007_s40888-016-0040-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The disconnection between privacy notices and information disclosure: an online experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Nuria Rodríguez-Priego

    (European Commission)

  • René van Bavel

    (European Commission)

  • Shara Monteleone

    (European Commission)

Abstract

We studied whether changes to the online environment, i.e. nudges, can lead to changes in privacy behaviour through an on-line experiment (n = 3229) across four European countries. The output measures were obtained through the answers to a questionnaire following a mock online exercise: one revealed the amount of personal information participants were willing to disclose, and the other whether they noticed a privacy policy link. The nudges appeared as changes in the design of a mock search engine (e.g. including an anthropomorphic character, highlighting prior browsing history or changing the look-and-feel to convey greater informality). The nudges did not lead to differences in the amount of personal information disclosed, but did affect whether participants noticed the privacy link or not. Socio-demographic factors were relevant. Compared to younger participants, older participants were less likely to reveal personal information but more likely to notice the privacy policy link. Men were more likely to reveal personal information than women, and more likely to notice the privacy policy link. Finally, significant differences were found between all countries. Participants from Italy chose to reveal least personal information (followed by those in Poland, Germany and the UK), and participants from the UK were significantly less likely to notice the privacy policy link. The implications for policy are that disclosure of personal information is resilient to small changes in the web environment, but this is not the case for awareness of a privacy policy link. Moreover, the fact that age, gender, and country of residence are relevant suggests that differentiated policy approaches depending on the target population may be warranted.

Suggested Citation

  • Nuria Rodríguez-Priego & René van Bavel & Shara Monteleone, 2016. "The disconnection between privacy notices and information disclosure: an online experiment," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 33(3), pages 433-461, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:epolit:v:33:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s40888-016-0040-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s40888-016-0040-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40888-016-0040-4
    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/s40888-016-0040-4?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. Jacoby, Jacob & Speller, Donald E & Berning, Carol A Kohn, 1974. "Brand Choice Behavior as a Function of Information Load: Replication and Extension," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 1(1), pages 33-42, June.
    2. Marianne Bertrand & Dean Karlan & Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir & Jonathan Zinman, 2010. "What's Advertising Content Worth? Evidence from a Consumer Credit Marketing Field Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 263-306.
    3. Francesco Bogliacino & Cristiano Codagnone & Giuseppe Veltri, 2015. "The Behavioural Turn in Consumer Policy: Perspectives and Clarifi cations," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 50(2), pages 108-114, March.
    4. Moon, Youngme, 2000. "Intimate Exchanges: Using Computers to Elicit Self-Disclosure from Consumers," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 26(4), pages 323-339, March.
    5. Cass Sunstein, 2014. "Nudging: A Very Short Guide," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 37(4), pages 583-588, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rodríguez-Priego, Nuria & Porcu, Lucia & Prados Peña, María Belén & Crespo Almendros, Esmeralda, 2023. "Perceived customer care and privacy protection behavior: The mediating role of trust in self-disclosure," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).

    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. Jun Li & Serguei Netessine, 2020. "Higher Market Thickness Reduces Matching Rate in Online Platforms: Evidence from a Quasiexperiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 271-289, January.
    2. Nuria Rodríguez-Priego & René van Bavel, 2016. "The Effect of Warning Messages on Secure Behaviour Online: Results from a Lab Experiment," JRC Research Reports JRC103188, Joint Research Centre.
    3. Liang Guo, 2016. "Contextual Deliberation and Preference Construction," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(10), pages 2977-2993, October.
    4. René van Bavel & Nuria Rodríguez-Priego, 2016. "Testing the Effect of the Cookie Banners on Behaviour," JRC Research Reports JRC103997, Joint Research Centre.
    5. Persson, Petra, 2018. "Attention manipulation and information overload," Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 78-106, May.
    6. repec:ags:aaea22:335733 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    8. Victor Stango & Jonathan Zinman, 2014. "Limited and Varying Consumer Attention: Evidence from Shocks to the Salience of Bank Overdraft Fees," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(4), pages 990-1030.
    9. Anna Fielder & Riina Vuorikari & Nuria Rodriguez-Priego & Yves Punie, 2016. "Background Review for Developing the Digital Competence Framework for Consumers: A snapshot of hot-button issues and recent literature," JRC Research Reports JRC103332, Joint Research Centre.
    10. Shumon Zihady, 2023. "Dupchanchia Model of Students' drop-out control through engagement and appreciation after Covid-19: A Behavioral Policy intervention in the field administration of Bangladesh," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 43(1), pages 136-148, May.
    11. Dean Karlan & Adam Osman & Nour Shammout, 2021. "Increasing Financial Inclusion in the Muslim World: Evidence from an Islamic Finance Marketing Experiment," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 35(2), pages 376-397.
    12. Seth Garz & Xavier Gine & Dean Karlan & Rafe Mazer & Caitlin Sanford & Jonathan Zinman, 2021. "Consumer Protection for Financial Inclusion in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Bridging Regulator and Academic Perspectives," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 219-246, November.
    13. Sara Moussawi & Marios Koufaris & Raquel Benbunan-Fich, 2021. "How perceptions of intelligence and anthropomorphism affect adoption of personal intelligent agents," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 31(2), pages 343-364, June.
    14. Yi Sun & Shihui Li & Lingling Yu, 2022. "The dark sides of AI personal assistant: effects of service failure on user continuance intention," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 32(1), pages 17-39, March.
    15. Omar Al-Ubaydli & John List, 2016. "Field Experiments in Markets," Artefactual Field Experiments j0002, The Field Experiments Website.
    16. Adele Quigley-McBride & Gregory Franco & Daniel Bruce McLaren & Antonia Mantonakis & Maryanne Garry, 2018. "In the real world, people prefer their last whisky when tasting options in a long sequence," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-14, August.
    17. Sule, Alan & Cemalcilar, Mehmet & Karlan, Dean S. & Zinman, Jonathan, 2015. "Unshrouding Effects on Demand for a Costly Add-on: Evidence from Bank Overdrafts in Turkey," Center Discussion Papers 198558, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    18. Chuan, Amanda & Samek, Anya Savikhin, 2014. "“Feel the Warmth” glow: A field experiment on manipulating the act of giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 198-211.
    19. Park, Gain & Park, YounJung & Lee, Seyoung, 2024. "Compliance-gaining in metaverse: A moderated parallel mediation model testing the interaction between legitimization of paltry favors technique and victim identification," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    20. Garber, Gabriel & Mian, Atif & Ponticelli, Jacopo & Sufi, Amir, 2024. "Consumption smoothing or consumption binging? The effects of government-led consumer credit expansion in Brazil," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    21. Carroll, James & Denny, Eleanor & Lyons, Ronan C. & Petrov, Ivan, 2024. "Better energy cost information changes household property investment decisions: Evidence from a nationwide experiment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Privacy; Data disclosure; Nudge; Data protection; Behavioural economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    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:epolit:v:33:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s40888-016-0040-4. 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.