Ethics and Information securities{0}
MEGADEAL, ACADEMIC UNIVERSE
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY-FRESNO
LIBRARY
FRESNO, CA
Terms: (information privacy)
Source: Major World Publications
Project ID:
5 of 989 DOCUMENTS
The International Herald Tribune
July 21, 2010 Wednesday
Putting a price on privacy;
In the Blogs: Bits
BYLINE: BY STEVE LOHR
SECTION: FINANCE; Pg. 17
LENGTH: 488 words
ABSTRACT
A paper by three scholars from Carnegie Mellon University attempts to answer the question of how to value personal information in an open market.
FULL TEXT
I recently wrote a column about a San Francisco start-up that is betting the time has come to make personal information online not only an asset consumers can manage but also a virtual currency that can someday be traded.
Others, of course, like Root Market years ago, have tried making a business from trading click streams and other online personal information on behalf of consumers. But part of the calculation by the start-up, Bynamite, is that these days, the data are far richer and the technology has matured enough to make such a service easy to use, effective and flexible. More people seem to be concerned about privacy today as well.
But if personal information can be made a tradable good in an open marketplace, there is a big challenge. ”There is no way to know in advance what the value of this information is,” said M. Ryan Calo, a senior research fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.
A paper by three scholars from Carnegie Mellon University does not answer that question precisely, but it does provide some insights.
The paper – ”What Is Privacy Worth?” – was presented at a conference last year and is awaiting publication in a professional journal. Its authors are Alessandro Acquisti, an associate professor in information technology and public policy; Leslie John, a doctoral candidate; and George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and psychology.
The research paper describes a field experiment at a Pittsburgh shopping mall. People were given choices between two kinds of gift cards: a $10 gift card that was anonymous, and a $12 gift card that would include personal information (and transactions made with the card would be linked to the holder’s name).
One group of people was presented first with the $10 card and told they could trade it for a $12 card. About half switched to the $12 card, and half refused the offer.
Another group was first given the $12 card and asked whether they wanted to switch to the $10 card, trading cash for greater privacy. Fewer than 10 percent switched. It was the same choice, only presented differently.
What conclusion to draw? ”When you have privacy, you value it more,” said Mr. Acquisti. ”But when the starting point is that we feel we don’t have privacy, we value privacy far less.”
So Mr. Acquisti says those experts who say people do not care about privacy are off base. Instead, he said, the perception that people place little value on privacy is shaped by their low expectations, which Mr. Acquisti termed the ”continual psychological conditioning that we don’t have privacy, that our personal information is widely available and we can’t control that.”
”In our everyday lives,” Mr. Acquisti concluded, ”we are more like those people presented the $12 card.”
LOAD-DATE: July 22, 2010
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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