HOW LIKELY ARE TRAVELERS TO GIVE UP INFORMATION IN EXCHANGE FOR BETTER USER INFORMATION SERVICES?

摘要

The emergence of location-based services has raised privacy to a hot-issue status. Clearly, there is a trade-off that needs to be considered. On the one hand, additional information can arguably improve the quality of the various services, not only for the individual, but also for the entire system. On the other hand, the collection of this additional information can be considered by some as a violation of their privacy. The objective of this paper is twofold: on the one hand to provide a way to quantify the value of this privacy (loss) and on the other hand to present results from a case study applying this methodology. The methodology is generic and is based on the concept of the marginal rate of substitution between cost and a different variable (in this case privacy). The application is based on a stated-preference questionnaire that was specifically designed for this application and disseminated to respondents in Athens, Greece. The estimated willingness-to-accept for giving up one level of privacy is equal to 2.2?/month (approx. US$2.8/month), which is considered reasonable since such services are commercially available for US$5/month. Results from a gender-based market segmentation analysis indicate that women appear to be more sensitive to privacy, but also show a slightly higher willingness-to-pay for improved accuracy.