TY - GEN
T1 - Why we can't be bothered to read privacy policies models of privacy economics as a lemons market
AU - Vila, Tony
AU - Greenstadt, Rachel
AU - Molnar, David
PY - 2003
Y1 - 2003
N2 - Consumers want to interact with web sites, but they also want to keep control of their private information. Asymmetric information about whether web sites will sell private information or not leads to a lemons market for privacy. We discuss privacy policies as signals in a lemons market and ways in which current realizations of privacy policies may fail to be effective signals. As a result of these shortcomings, we consider a "lemons market with testing," where consumers have a cost of determining whether a site meets their privacy requirement. Our model explains empirical data concerning privacy policies and privacy seals. We end by discussing cyclic instability in the number of web sites that sell consumer information.
AB - Consumers want to interact with web sites, but they also want to keep control of their private information. Asymmetric information about whether web sites will sell private information or not leads to a lemons market for privacy. We discuss privacy policies as signals in a lemons market and ways in which current realizations of privacy policies may fail to be effective signals. As a result of these shortcomings, we consider a "lemons market with testing," where consumers have a cost of determining whether a site meets their privacy requirement. Our model explains empirical data concerning privacy policies and privacy seals. We end by discussing cyclic instability in the number of web sites that sell consumer information.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77954490140&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=77954490140&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/948005.948057
DO - 10.1145/948005.948057
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:77954490140
SN - 1581137885
SN - 9781581137880
T3 - ACM International Conference Proceeding Series
SP - 403
EP - 407
BT - Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Electronic Commerce, ICEC '03
T2 - 5th International Conference on Electronic Commerce, ICEC '03
Y2 - 30 September 2003 through 3 October 2003
ER -