Re: State of Social Web Update -- bin the surveys!

Hi all,

I absolutely second Sören's point. But I think things are even more complicated.
On non-social sites, e.g. an e-commerce site, users make a conscious trade-off between protecting their privacies and gaining some benefit from putting it at risk (e.g., register to buy a book). This is called Privacy Balance [1]. There are works trying to model this as an economic trade-off function. The point with social sites is, as Sören points out, that people find themselves in the middle of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, i.e. in the layers of belonging and esteem. To serve needs like socialization, the users' decision-making process is distorted. This is often referred to as Privacy Paradox [2-4]. I think most of the people affected (including myself) belong to Westin's Privacy Pragmatists (about 60% of users). Having all that said, things get more complicated when non-altruistic providers, that try to maximize the Network Effect on their platform to raise their database of users and knowledge (cf. O'Reilly's data-drivenness of Web 2.0), exploit this sociological phenomenon. This is what I call Privacy Theatre. A (marketing) game is played that lets users feel safe and be in control. But effectively neither control nor transparency is provided (or made usable) to allow users to sense and control the audience for their published information. 

Alex

[1] Fred H. Cate. Privacy in the information age. Brookings Institution Press, 1997.
[2] Tony Vila, Rachel Greenstadt, and David Molnar. Why we can’t be bothered to read privacy policies models of privacy economics as a lemons market. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Electronic commerce (ICEC). ACM, 2003.
[3] Alessandro Acquisti and Jens Grossklags. Privacy and rationality in individual decision making. IEEE Security & Privacy, 3(1):26–33, 2005.
[4] Alessandro Acquisti. Privacy in electronic commerce and the economics of im- mediate gratification. In Proceedings of the 5th ACM conference on Electronic Commerce (EC). ACM, 2004.

On 20.07.2010, at 18:37, Sören Preibusch wrote:

> When it comes to privacy, survey data and results from opinion probing should be consumed with extreme care. There is a proverbial divergence between stated concerns and actual privacy action, notably concerning self-protection. For instance, the Eurobarometer indicates that “Two-thirds of survey participants said they were concerned as to whether organisations that held their personal data handled this data appropriately.” and that “nearly all respondents said it was true that they had an option to oppose such use of their personal information”. Unfortunately, the entire survey is skewed by social desirability bias ... How can people say they had been phished if research in laboratories shows they cannot even tell phishing sites and the real thing apart?
> So, if prompted, consumers state strong but vague concerns about privacy and data protection. But lack of technical education, inadequate privacy controls, bounded rationality etc. may prevent these concerns from translating into privacy-enhancing action.
>  
> Sören
>  
> From: public-xg-socialweb-request@w3.org [mailto:public-xg-socialweb-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Melvin Carvalho
> Sent: 20 July 2010 17:01
> To: Carine Bournez
> Cc: Tom Morris; cperey@perey.com; Harry Halpin; public-xg-socialweb@w3.org
> Subject: Re: State of Social Web Update
>  
>  
> 
> On 17 July 2010 00:09, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
>  
> 
> On 17 July 2010 00:05, Carine Bournez <carine@w3.org> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 02:15:35PM -0400, Tom Morris wrote:
> > I agree with Christine.  I'm very concerned about privacy, but I also
> > recognize that the general population does not.
> 
> It's not true that people are not concerned about privacy, but they
> are not sufficiently aware of the risks.
> 
> Regarding risks:
> 
> Summary of additional findings:
> 
> The Webroot survey uncovered that a significant number of people have fallen prey to criminals who target social network users for attack:
> 
> 	• Nearly a quarter of respondents (22.4 percent) were victims of a phishing attempt to steal their social network password.
> 	• About one in six (16 percent) reported a malware infection in the past year that originated from a social networking site.
> 	• One in nine reported at least one of their social network accounts had been compromised or hijacked.
>  
> 
> And if you thought the phishing was bad ....
> 
> When asked if they had ever read a partner’s Facebook messages, e-mail or other electronic correspondence, the men answered thusly:
> 	• Yes, but only with her knowledge: 23.51%
> 	• Yes, but only because it was open on her desktop: 13.32%
> 	• Yes, I broke into her e-mail or messaging account: 8.90%
> 	• No, but I would if I suspected she was up to something: 21.54%
> 	• No, I respect her privacy: 32.73%
> http://mashable.com/2010/07/20/askmen-survey/
> 
> 
>  
> 
> >
> > Sure, and I bet they all would say they are deeply concerned about
> > world hunger too, but the editorial (yes, it's an editorial calling
> > for more action on privacy), also says:
> >
> >   "So why are we saying one thing, but doing another when it comes to privacy?"
> >
> > and
> >
> >   "If half of us are that concerned about privacy, it should stand to
> > reason that we would do something about it. However, rather than
> > leaving these networks that cause so much concern, people continue to
> > sign up: Facebook will be announcing its 500 million user milestone
> > any day now, and Foursquare has reached 1.8 million users in its first
> > year alone."
> >
> > It's fine to say that we need to worry about privacy now so that some
> > when the general population does begin to care the appropriate
> > technologies are available, but I don't see the data to support the
> > statement that most users care in any concrete way.
> 
> You can't say that people don't care because you found 500 million
> users on facebook. There are also lots of people who are not on
> facebook and nobody asks them why. Those studies are biaised by design.
> 
> 
>  
>  


VG,
Alex

-- 
Alexander Korth
www.twitter.com/alexkorth

Received on Wednesday, 21 July 2010 07:05:49 UTC