Are Users Always the “Victim” of Privacy Invasion?

Anita (Shuxuan)Song

There are an increasing number of users on online platforms, and the issue of privacy leakage has been drawing more of their attention. Many of the users, including myself, might have experienced the situation when they see websites pop up advertisements about the subject they recently discuss with others, or find that some online platforms are “familiar” with their phone numbers. Usually what would be the first reaction when people notice their information is leaked? Get angry and blame the company!  I have always believed that once users are well-aware of a potential privacy invasion, they would take care of their personal information more cautiously. Shadow profile is my privacy + topic, which talks about the situation when users’ information are attained without their consent or awareness. While researching shadow profiles, a topic about information invasion without users’ consent, I found a journal with ideas that  matched with my previous thoughts: as people become more aware of the issue of privacy and become more anxious and concerned about it, they are more likely to protect their information. It almost becomes a point of view that a majority of online users believe, such that whenever a privacy invasion occurs, it is due to the misconduct of the party of social media and never blame the users, who are always “victims” in those cases. However, during my research I also found many other journals point out cases when users proactively share their information online, and thus, I would state that it is arguable that whether online users are always the victim of privacy invasion (1).

Some of the articles I researched include inconsistent behaviors of social media users, such that even while they are well-aware of the potential invasion of privacy, they still choose to reveal their personal information (1). For instance, in order to generate more customized results from search engines or certain online platforms, users are willing to share their personal information or online history. Other journals have shown that the lax attitude from users also leads to the problem of privacy leakage (2). To be more specific, users might possess a psychological mechanism similar to third-person effect which is to think that the issue affects others more than on themselves, and think that the mass-communication  messages, such as messages sent to a large group of people, will have a greater impact on other users but not themselves; this mechanism is either due to an overestimation of the mass-communication effect on others  or an underestimation of such an impact on themselves. It is also true that, for example, when users search for goods on e-commerce sites, the generated results will be an outcome of past purchase history in order to match as much as possible with users’ taste (3). Since e-commerce can present goods that match users’ predispositions, then the users’ high gratification would lead them to share even more of their information to keep receiving satisfactory outcomes. 

In conclusion, it is true that there exist situations where the online companies access to users’ information without their consent. And one of the examples for this is some online platforms have monetization cooperation with third-parties. To be more specific, those companies would share data from users in exchange of money, under which cases privacy invasion is pervasive (4). Other examples include the shadow profile of Facebook and Google, for which they collect some of users’ information without consent (5). Nevertheless, from what is said previously we also see multiple cases where users themselves provide their personal information willingly. As a result of that, it is important to eliminate a potential bias that people have towards privacy invasion: while many of them believe that users are always the victim from such an issue, they should also keep in mind there are circumstances where users are willing to share their personal information, such as while they conduct online chatting or want to generate more matchable results from search engines. 

Bibliography:

  1. Jiang, et al. 2013. Research Note —Privacy Concerns and Privacy-Protective Behavior in Synchronous Online Social Interactions. Information Systems Research 24(3):579-595. 

  2. Debatin, et al. 2009. “Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences.” Journal of Computer-mediated Communication 15(1):83-108.

  3. Gopal, et al. 2018. “How Much to Share with Third Parties? User Privacy Concerns and Website Dilemmas.” MIS Quarterly 42(1): 143-A25 (47p).

  4. Custers, et alt. "Privacy Expectations of Social Media Users: The Role of Informed Consent in Privacy Policies." Policy and Internet 6, no. 3 (2014): 268-95.

  5. Child, et al. 2016. Fuzzy Facebook privacy boundaries: Exploring mediated lurking, vague-booking, and Facebook privacy management. Computers in Human Behavior 54:483-490.