What do they know about me? Contents and Concerns of Online Behavioral Profiles

TL;DR

This study investigates online behavioral profiles, revealing significant concerns about data sensitivity, inaccuracies, and transparency gaps, with implications for user privacy and policy regulation.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into user concerns, profile accuracy, and transparency issues by analyzing real user data and perceptions through interviews and surveys.

Findings

Over 70% of users are concerned about sensitive data collection.

Profiles are often inaccurate, with up to 80% error rate.

Large transparency gaps exist between data shown and data held by companies.

Abstract

Data aggregators collect large amount of information about individual users and create detailed online behavioral profiles of individuals. Behavioral profiles benefit users by improving products and services. However, they have also raised concerns regarding user privacy, transparency of collection practices and accuracy of data in the profiles. To improve transparency, some companies are allowing users to access their behavioral profiles. In this work, we investigated behavioral profiles of users by utilizing these access mechanisms. Using in-person interviews (n=8), we analyzed the data shown in the profiles, elicited user concerns, and estimated accuracy of profiles. We confirmed our interview findings via an online survey (n=100). To assess the claim of improving transparency, we compared data shown in profiles with the data that companies have about users. More than 70% of the participants expressed concerns about collection of sensitive data such as credit and health information, level of detail and how their data may be used. We found a large gap between the data shown in profiles and the data possessed by companies. A large number of profiles were inaccurate with as much as 80% inaccuracy. We discuss implications for public policy management.