Measuring Lay Reactions to Personal Data Markets

TL;DR

This study investigates lay people's reactions to personal data markets, revealing widespread refusal to participate and higher-than-market pricing, challenging current consent paradigms and highlighting cultural mismatches.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence that current data markets are often rejected by laypeople and that their valuation of data exceeds market prices, questioning existing consent models.

Findings

High refusal rate in data pricing exercise

Median data price was much higher than market price

Results challenge current notice and consent paradigms

Abstract

The recording, aggregation, and exchange of personal data is necessary to the development of socially-relevant machine learning applications. However, anecdotal and survey evidence show that ordinary people feel discontent and even anger regarding data collection practices that are currently typical and legal. This suggests that personal data markets in their current form do not adhere to the norms applied by ordinary people. The present study experimentally probes whether market transactions in a typical online scenario are accepted when evaluated by lay people. The results show that a high percentage of study participants refused to participate in a data pricing exercise, even in a commercial context where market rules would typically be expected to apply. For those participants who did price the data, the median price was an order of magnitude higher than the market price. These results call into question the notice and consent market paradigm that is used by technology firms and government regulators when evaluating data flows. The results also point to a conceptual mismatch between cultural and legal expectations regarding the use of personal data.