Originally Posted on Substack
In this video, I interview Alessandro Acquisti (MIT) about his pathbreaking work on the economics of privacy. Topics include the privacy paradox, the value of personal data, attitudes and behaviors, and the impact of laws.  Here are a just few of Acquisti’s many works that I find interesting:

Is There a Reverse Privacy Paradox? An Exploratory Analysis of Gaps Between Privacy Perspectives and Privacy-Seeking Behaviors

Colnago, Jessica, Lorrie Faith Cranor, and Alessandro Acquisti. In Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, Lausanne, Switzerland: July 2023.

Collectively, the results indicate that individuals who are seemingly dismissive of privacy concerns engage in behaviors that can be construed as privacy-seeking. The findings highlight the nuances of individual privacy decision-making and suggest that public policy related to privacy should account for the evidence for widespread privacy-seeking behaviors.

Privacy and Behavioral Economics

Acquisti, Alessandro, Laura Brandimarte, and George Loewenstein. In Modern Socio-Technical Perspectives on Privacy, edited by Bart P. Knijnenburg, Heather Richter Lipford, Jennifer Romano, Nicholas Proferes, Pamela Wisniewski, and Xinru Page, 61-77. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2022.

There are diverse streams of empirical research attempting to study complex privacy behaviors in different scenarios. In this chapter, we connect those streams and present them under three themes: (1) individuals’ uncertainty about their own preferences as well as their uncertainty about the consequences of information disclosure; (2) the context-dependence of individuals’ concern, or lack thereof, about privacy; (3) the degree to which privacy concerns are malleable and prone to manipulations by commercial and government entities. Building on these themes, we discuss the role of public policy in the protection of privacy in the information age.

How Privacy’s Past May Shape Its Future

Acquisti, Alessandro, Laura Brandimarte, and Jeff Hancock. Science Vol. 375, No. 6578 (2022): 270-272.

Privacy—not merely hiding of data, but the selective opening and closing of the self to others—appears to be both culturally specific and culturally universal. But what could explain the simultaneous universality and diversity of a human drive for privacy? An account of the evolutionary roots of privacy may offer an answer and teach us about privacy’s digital future and how to manage it.

Secrets and Likes: The Drive for Privacy and the Difficulty of Achieving It in the Digital Age

Acquisti, Alessandro, Laura Brandimarte, and George Loewenstein. Journal of Consumer Psychology Vol. 30, No. 4 (2020): 736-758.

Contrary to depictions of online sharing behaviors as careless, we show how consumers fundamentally care about online privacy, and present evidence of numerous actions they take to protect it. However, we also document how prohibitively difficult it is to attain desired, or even desirable, levels of privacy through individual action alone. The remaining instrument for privacy protection is policy intervention. However, again for both psychological and economic reasons, the collective impetus for adequate intervention is often countervailed by powerful interests that oppose it.

Sleights of Privacy: Framing, Disclosures, and the Limits of Transparency

Adjerid, Idris, Alessandro Acquisti, Laura Brandimarte, and George Loewenstein. In Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security, Newcastle, UK: July 2013.

[W]e illustrate in a series of experiments that even simple privacy notices do not consistently impact disclosure behavior, and may in fact be used to nudge individuals to disclose variable amounts of personal information. In a first experiment, we demonstrate that the impact of privacy notices on disclosure is sensitive to relative judgments, even when the objective risks of disclosure actually stay constant. In a second experiment, we show that the impact of privacy notices on disclosure can be muted by introducing simple misdirections that do not alter the objective risk of disclosure. These findings cast doubts on the likelihood of initiatives predicated around notices and transparency to address, by themselves, online privacy concerns.

The Effect of Online Privacy Information on Purchasing Behavior: An Experimental Study

Tsai, Janice Y., Serge Egelman, Lorrie Cranor, and Alessandro Acquisti. Information Systems Research Vol. 22, No. 2 (2011): 254-268.

We designed an experiment in which a shopping search engine interface clearly and compactly displays privacy policy information. When such information is made available, consumers tend to purchase from online retailers who better protect their privacy. In fact, our study indicates that when privacy information is made more salient and accessible, some consumers are willing to pay a premium to purchase from privacy protective websites. This result suggests that businesses may be able to leverage privacy protection as a selling point.

Strangers on a Plane: Context-Dependent Willingness to Divulge Sensitive Information

John, Leslie K., Alessandro Acquisti, and George Loewenstein. Journal of Consumer Research Vol. 37, No. 5 (2011): 858-873.

Our central thesis, and a central finding of all four experiments, is that disclosure of private information is responsive to environmental cues that bear little connection, or are even inversely related, to objective hazards.

Privacy and Rationality in Individual Decision Making

Acquisti, Alessandro and Jens Grossklags. IEEE Security & Privacy Vol. 3, No. 1 (2005): 26-33.

Traditional theory suggests consumers should be able to manage their privacy. Yet, empirical and theoretical research suggests that consumers often lack enough information to make privacy-sensitive decisions and, even with sufficient information, are likely to trade off long-term privacy for short-term benefits.

My Article: The Myth of the Privacy Paradox