Consumers' privacy choices in the era of big data

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dengler, Sebastian; Prufer, Jens
• 署名单位: Tilburg University
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2021.09.007
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 499-520
• 关键词: privacy; big data; Perfect price discrimination; Level-k thinking

摘要

Recent progress in information technologies provides sellers with detailed knowledge about consumers' preferences, approaching perfect price discrimination in the limit. We construct a model where consumers with less strategic sophistication than the seller's pricing algorithm face a trade-off when buying. They choose between a direct, transaction cost-free sales channel and a privacy-protecting, but costly, anonymous channel. We show that the anonymous channel is used even in the absence of an explicit taste for privacy if consumers are not too strategically sophisticated. This provides a micro-foundation for consumers' privacy choices. Some consumers benefit but others suffer from their anonymization. (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc.