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Data and Privacy

Responsible Researchers: Dr. Tatiana Ermakova, Prof. Dr. Hanna Krasnova

The Price of Privacy

Despite significant advances in technical privacy protection mechanisms for Social Media users, sharing remains a high-risk activity. A new generation of Facebook and mobile applications have worsened and complicated this problem as third-party apps may gain access to users’ most private details circumventing well-established means of protection, such as privacy settings (Krasnova et al. 2013; Eling et al. 2013). Despite these dangers, users readily consent to third-party apps in exchange for using the offered utilities. Whether or not privacy considerations play a role in this context, however, remains unclear. Indeed, do users even notice requested privacy permissions? Which information items do they consider particularly sensitive? Is it possible to quantify the value of individual information items? Can app providers use minimization of collected data as a source of competitive advantage? Which design changes can be helpful in informing the user about possible breaches, facilitating more informed and rational decisions? To address these questions a set of online experiments with mock-ups and real apps are currently being planned. This research is likely to provide users, app providers as well as policy-makers with hand-on insights on the gravity of this problem as well as possible solutions.

Privacy Policies 

Online privacy policies inform Website users about the ways their personal information is gathered, processed and stored. In the light of increasing privacy concerns, privacy policies seem to be an important mechanism for increasing customer loyalty. However, in practice, consumers only rarely read privacy policies, possibly due to the common assumption that policies are hard to read. In this project, we are designing and implementing automated extraction and readability analysis tool sets and study psychological reactions to policy readability and content.

Reference: https://www.researchgate.net/project/Privacy-Policies-Readability-Content-Impact
 

Main Areas

·       Readability
·       Impact on Users’ Trust

Publications

Journal Article

  • Krasnova, H., Veltri, N., Elgarah, W. (2014). Effectiveness of Justice-Based Measures in Managing Trust and Privacy Concerns on Social Networking Sites: Intercultural Perspective. Communications of the Association of Information Systems, 35(4)pp. 83-108

Conference Papers

  • Ermakova, T., Krasnova, H., Fabian, B. (2016). Exploring the Impact of Readability of Privacy Policies on Users’ Trust. European Conference on Information Systems.
  • Ermakova, T., Fabian, B., Babina, E. (2015). Readability of Privacy Policies of Healthcare Websites. International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik.
  • Krasnova, H., Eling, N., Abramova, O., Buxmann, P. (2014) "Dangers of ‘Facebook Login’ for Mobile Apps: Is There a Price Tag for Social Information?", International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2014), Auckland, New Zealand.
  • Ermakova, T. Baumann, A., Fabian, B., Krasnova, H. (2014) “Privacy Policies and Users’ Trust: Does Readability Matter?”, Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2014), Savannah, USA.
  • Veltri, NF, Krasnova, H., Elgarah, W. (2011) “Online Disclosure and Privacy Concerns: A Study of Moroccan and American Facebook Users”, 16th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2011), Detroit, USA.
  • Krasnova, H., Veltri, N. (2011) “Behind the Curtains of Privacy Calculus on Social Networking Sites: The Study of Germany and the USA”, 10th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2011),  Zürich, Switzerland.
  • Krasnova, H., Koroleva, K., Veltri, N. (2010) “Investigation of the Network Construction Behaviour on Social Networking Sites”, International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2010), St. Louis, USA
  • Krasnova H., Kolesnikova E., Günther O. (2010) “Leveraging Trust and Privacy Concerns in Online Social Networks: an Empirical Study”, 18th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2010), Pretoria, South Africa.
  • Krasnova H., Veltri N. (2010) “Privacy Calculus on Social Networking Sites: Explorative Evidence from Germany and USA”, Proceedings of the 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'10), Kauai, Hawaii, USA. 
  • Krasnova H., Hildebrand T., Günther O. (2009) “Investigating the Value of Privacy on Online Social Networks: Conjoint Analysis”, International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2009), Phoenix, Arizona, USA. 
  • Krasnova H., Kolesnikova E., Günther O. (2009) “It Won't Happen To Me!: Self-Disclosure in Online Social Networks”, 15th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2009), San Francisco, USA.

Projects

  • Glaser L. The Impact of Privacy Policies on User’s Perceptions - A Literature Review. Master Seminar Paper
  • Orlamünde I., Höhne S., Hanser M. Twitch: Are game-streaming sessions differently viewed across the channels, locations, etc.?.
  • Weidhaas V., LaMonica C., Zeuge E. Jameda: Are doctors differently reviewed online depending on a profile picture, the presence of an online booking system, gender, etc.?
  • Koch, C., Sunkar M, Siever V. Analysis of DAX Assets: Where to invest?
  • Baumhoff M., Lutze F. HRS: Are hotels differently priced and/or reviewed online depending on their offer?
  • Harbas D., Biedulski A. Football: Results and betting odds
  • Hohensee A. Refugees: Their origin, the countries where they fled to and their status
  • Schütt E., Vaseva V. Hotel online reviews: How is the rating score reflected in the review text? What are the most frequently mentioned pros and contras?
  • Zielaskowski M., Söner L. D. Jameda: Are doctors differently reviewed online depending on the location and the field?
  • Dehnert M., Glaser L., Mao K. Yelp: Analysis of location-based information and text reviews
  • Christof M., Leps O., Ploner T. Einkommen und Mieten in Berlin - Wie bezahlbar ist Berlin?
  • Knetsch C. Online Privacy Interference: Privacy-Preserving Tools