Your Browsing Behavior for a Big Mac: Economics of Personal Information Online
1. 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.
6. 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?!
7. 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.!
11. 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!
12. 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!
Retrospective!
recall!
Validity of!
PII valuation!
Engagement during participation /!
Burden of the probing!
Honesty of!
valuation!
13. 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!
Retrospective!
recall!
Validity of!
PII valuation!
Engagement during participation /!
Burden of the probing!
Honesty of!
valuation!
14. Methodology
To promote honesty of valuation, we used a
reverse second-price auction mechanism!
!
Bids! Payout!
Winning
bid!
(lowest)!
Retrospective!
recall!
Validity of!
PII valuation!
Engagement during participation /!
Burden of the probing!
Honesty of!
valuation!
16. 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!
17. 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!
18. 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!
20. 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!
!
21. 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… “
22. 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!
24. 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?!
28. 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?!
29. Results
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Frequency
(%)
RQ2: But they would accept certain goods in
exchange.!
!
30. 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!
!
3 1 2
31. 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!
35. 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.!
36. 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!