Privacy nudges as policy interventions: comparing US and German media users’ evaluation of information privacy nudges

ABSTRACT

The protection of individuals’ online privacy is one of the main challenges for Internet policy. As the informed consent paradigm has largely failed to ensure privacy protection online, we examine nudging as a tool of soft paternalism as an alternative intervention to sensitize users towards online privacy. Building upon the criticism that nudging is considered being manipulative and reducing people’s autonomy in decision-making, we inquire how media users themselves evaluate nudges’ effectiveness and intrusiveness. In particular, we distinguish nudges either as targeting heuristic decision-making (system 1) or deliberate decision-making through education and information (system 2). Empirically, we carried out an interview study among German and US media users (N = 52) to address cross-cultural differences in the evaluation of privacy interventions. Our results point to a preference for system 2 nudges. Germans in particular perceive state interventions addressing privacy awareness as more acceptable and helpful than US participants.

KEYWORDS:

• Information privacy
• nudging
• soft paternalism
• privacy regulation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Leyla Dogruel (Ph.D., Freie Universität Berlin) works as assistant professor at Johannes-Gutenberg University, Mainz (Germany). Her areas of research include privacy in mobile media, decision making in digital media, media innovation and media economics.

Notes

1 The nomenclature for identifying participants in the interviews is as follows: G = German, U = US, followed by a unique identifying number per country, gender and age in years. G9, male, 25, is a German participant labelled 9, he is 25 years old and male.