A Carnegie Mellon study suggests that shoppers are willing to pay more if they are re-assured about privacy. The premium mentioned is about $0.60 (30p) on goods worth $15 (£7). This is good news. Privacy is one of the ‘goods’ with benefit distributed over time and like security you wish you had it most only when you discover you have none. Usually not in circumstances of your choosing. The heartening point about the report is that before many studies were showing that despite peoples fears about what happens to their data, they continued to surrender it in exchange for low prices.
Lorrie Cranor, director of the Usable Privacy and Security Lab at Carnegie Mellon and lead author on the study:
Our suspicion was that people care about their privacy, but that it’s often difficult for them to get information about a website’s privacy policies.
So if users are happy to pay a bit extra for re-assurances that privacy of their information is respected, perhaps they would be equally willing to use tools that give them control and ownership over that data. Of course, there are issues with that, especially with the current state of online security and lack of more flexible and selective privacy. However, there are people already looking into this so I might start holding my breath. 🙂
cross-posted from Media Influencer
Cool – you get to save money if you don’t suffer from the whole privacy hang-up thing.
You can have the best of both worlds. Most of the grocery stores which offer those purchase-tracking money-saving “membership” cards (here in North Carolina it’s Lowes, Harris Teeter and Food Lion) don’t ever check that validity of the information you put on the application form. Secondly, most of them will let you use your card when you don’t have it on you by simply providing a phone number. I usually give them my parents’ number as they don’t seem to mind, but it would be easy for a group of friends to have a “common” membership account with false info attached. Funny enough, when I give them my parents’ number, the attendant says “Welcome back Mr. .. uh.. ‘Nubody’?” Makes me think my folks have the same sense of concern (and humor) as I.
P.S. This is my first post to Samizdata. Hi, everyone! 🙂
P.P.S. I find it ironic that a blog fully of paranoid privacy-freaks would require an e-mail address to post comments…
Commenter: How so?
Lack of privacy could cost you money in many ways… the most obvious is identity theft.
Even the time takes to go through and delete unwanted marketing spam from sites that sell my details to others is worth a lot more to me than paying a bit extra to prevent it. Time is money remember?
But it’s not just about money, it’s about autonomy and control over your data and information online. I don’t see why others should have more ability to use it than myself and privacy is essential to redressing that balance.
Isaac, we don’t really need your email. Note that inputting anything resembling an email will do just fine…
Wondering why you consider people who care about privacy ‘paranoid privacy-freaks’? There seem to be just two settings – don’t care for privacy and privacy-freak. Doesn’t sound right…
Cool – I hope you drown in spam and have your identity stolen. Oh how I will laugh at the cost of your ‘savings.’
The way we defend our private property (this blog) is to make it harder for spammers to use it. The email address is just one very small layer of many layers of our defences.
And if you think we are paranoid, then presumably you do not think people are out there seeking to use details of your life for their ends, which may well involved the detriment of your ends. Is that really what you think?
“Lack of privacy could cost you money in many ways… the most obvious is identity theft.”
Ooh. I’m quivering with fear now.
On the subject of store loyalty cards, I’ve often mused that it’d be good if somebody sold badges with “NO, I DONT HAVE A FUCK*NG “CLUBCARD”, SO DONT BOTHER ASKING ME” printed on them – to speed up business at the checkout.
“Cool – I hope you drown in spam and have your identity stolen.”
Spam? Never been a problem.
Identity theft? I do believe that’s illegal. Why, criminals might even steal one’s details even if one were paying extra to get ‘privacy’!
Do not underestimate the sheer naughtyness of these dashed crims.
I have a policy: never argue with an idiot, other people may not be able to tell the difference.
Adriana,
Sorry my sarcasm didn’t show through. I actually consider myself a paranoid privacy-freak. 😛
“…blog fully of paranoid privacy-freaks..”
Adriana, Perry, he got you !
Anyway, privacy seems to be valued very low – at 0.60$.
I’m sure, that if asked, you’d have guessed that people would pay any price to protect their privacy.
My name and address appear in the phone directory, so I guess, I’m no privacy-freak !
Isaac,
Pooling loyalty cards makes some sense. I have discussed with some seriousness an Oyster card exchange for people like me who would rather buy a paper ticket at twice the price than have one. Since one can in principle give them an exact value, cash pre-paid Oysters could be swapped with strangers breaking all the data-trails, but without costing TfL a penny, or damaging its network usage statistics.
Auto theft is illegal. Removing the keys from the ignition is a far better deterrent than the laws alone.
Burglary is illegal. Good locks on the doors and a large dog do wonders to deter same, even the folks who aren’t deterred by several years (in the US; several days in the UK) in stir.
Good privacy practices make it harder for a would-be impostor to pretend to be you. They could, on balance, give a damn about the fact that criminal impersonation (in this state) is a felony. However, they won’t get far in pretending to be you without your name and other information.
If we’re all paranoid and freaks, why don’t you use your real name? Forgive me my skepticism, but I doubt that your mother thought of “commenter.”
Guy,
I thought that swapping cell phones with friends is very useful in protecting privacy.