Privacy Paradox

Named in consumer research in the early 2000s and tested by Norberg, Horne and Horne in 2007, who found disclosure far exceeding what the same people said they were willing to give. Later work disputes the framing: stated attitudes are general while behaviour is specific, the choices are made inside interfaces designed to produce them, and nobody can price a risk that arrives years later in a form they cannot trace. Solove argued in 2021 that the paradox is largely an artefact of comparing attitudes about one thing with behaviour about another.

In practice

• A survey respondent rates data protection as very important and takes a loyalty card for a discount on coffee.
• A user who objects to tracking accepts the consent banner, because the article is behind it.

Possible explanations

One explanation is that stated attitudes are general while behaviour is specific. Another is that choices are made inside interfaces designed to produce them. A third is that nobody can price a risk that arrives years later in a form they cannot trace.

In its favour

The behaviour is not in doubt, since disclosure repeatedly exceeds what the same people say they are willing to give, and the gap is large enough to matter for policy.

Against it

Whether it shows insincere preferences or unactionable ones is disputed, and Solove argued in 2021 that the paradox is largely an artefact of comparing attitudes about one thing with behaviour about another.

Standing

Contested. The behaviour is not in doubt; whether it shows that the stated preference is insincere, or that consent mechanisms make the preference unactionable, is.

Subject

Technology & Software

Essay

The programmers' folklore, and technology's place in society