People Will Give Up Privacy For a Small Discount

All things being equal, people always choose privacy. Offer them an itty-bitty discount and they throw caution to the wind and select the unsafe method.

If the price is the same at the two providers, the majority of purchases in the laboratory are conducted at the privacy-friendly online service provider (about 83% of all tickets sold); this observation shows that if offers are placed next to each other and consumers can compare the amount of data collected, consumers take information practice into account. In the cases where also the price differs, the market share of the privacy-friendly service provider drops, below or close to one third.

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This just in: Humans frequently do stupid things.

People like saving money, nothing new here. Besides, there is no such thing as privacy anymore.

LordCalin said:

People like saving money, nothing new here. Besides, there is no such thing as privacy anymore.

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Maybe, but why not hold on to what you do have. Why give it all away?

privacy is a commodity (facebook, duh).
can be traded for goods and services

My ISP doesn't monitor my usage and that's the only reason I am still with them for $59.99 / Month for 10 Megs. I could go to Suddenlink for $29.99 / Month for 10 Megs, but my neighbor got busted for downloading The Dark Knight and they sent him a letter saying when, what time, and from where it was acquired. So, I wouldn't mind paying extra for an ISP that lets me do as I please with my bandwidth.

wiseoracle said:

Maybe, but why not hold on to what you do have. Why give it all away?

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I don't think he was suggesting "giving it all away". You can retain privacy in some areas while making public other information — it's not an all-or-nothing deal.

Depends on the situation. In general, I prefer privacy.

wonderfield said:

I don't think he was suggesting "giving it all away". You can retain privacy in some areas while making public other information — it's not an all-or-nothing deal.

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Exactly.

I remember an experiment done where people would give away their network password for a candy bar. Nothing should be surprising anymore except acts of intelligence.

I glanced over the pdf, but I'm kinda tired and can't actually see what the differences specifically were. Was on just lower security so any data in the transaction (CC details and such) were potentially exposed, or was it a case of them freely giving out certain information (telephone numbers, addresses, names)?

Its kind of important to know those details for the study to be useful. I personally don't mind giving out certain information if it means I get a lower price, other information I value more highly, and whether its open distribution of the data which is clearly explained where the data is going, or a simple "we have the right to distribute your data" clause or simply low security... all those things are important variables to such a study. Otherwise its pretty meaningless.