Privacy Controls in the Attention Economy
(A2020-62522)

AUTHORS

Julien Cloarec, TSM-Research, Université Toulouse Capitole, CNRS

KEYWORDS

privacy controls; privacy calculus; attention quality

ABSTRACT

Firms collect a large amount of data to improve consumer experience through personalization, which might also impact consumers’ life in a way that it threatens their privacy. That is why firms have long known the importance of empowering consumers regarding their privacy. While complex, it is necessary to keep on investigating the ambivalent effect of privacy controls because the trade-off between advertising effectiveness and consumer privacy is at the core of the attention economy. The author conducted an online survey in October 2019 among French-speaking Facebook users. Through a privacy calculus lens, the author adopted a within-subject design to test the effect of education on privacy controls on satisfaction with Facebook ads. The results show that education on privacy controls indirectly affect the satisfaction with Facebook ads via privacy concerns (negative), fairness (positive), and attention quality (positive).