THE DARK SIDE OF VOLUNTARY DATA SHARING

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Li, Xi; Li, Bingqing; Yang, Zhilin
• 署名单位: University of Hong Kong; Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University; City University of Hong Kong
• 刊物名称: MIS QUARTERLY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0276-7783
• DOI: 10.25300/MISQ/2024/18829
• 发表日期: 2025-03
• 页码: 155-178
• 关键词: Voluntary data sharing; price discrimination; privacy; public policy; GDPR; information privacy research; Consumer privacy

摘要

To balance the need forprivacy and the benefits of big data analytics, regulators around the world are giving consumers control over their data, allowing them to choose whether or not to voluntarily share their purchase history data with firms. Intuition suggests that voluntary data sharing benefits consumers who can now choose to share their data only when it is profitable to do so. To investigate this argument, we built a model in which a monopolistic firm sells a repeatedly purchased product to consumers over two periods, and consumers decide whether or not to share their purchase history data with the firm, who can use it in the future to price-discriminate against them. We found that, compared to when data collection is completely outlawed, voluntary data sharing can benefit the firm but at the consumer's expense. Moreover, regulations that mandate firms to better protect consumer data against data breaches can backfire on consumers. Finally, we show that under voluntary data sharing, a firm's ability to offer consumers a monetary incentive to share their data can improve profits without hurting consumers. Taken together, these findings underscore the surprising effects of voluntary data sharing and caution public policymakers of how certain data policies that, on the surface, seem purely beneficial can lead to unintended consequences.