A market for unbiased private data: Paying individuals according to their privacy attitudes

Authors

  • Christina Aperjis Hewlett Packard Laboratories
  • Bernardo A. Huberman Hewlett Packard Laboratories

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v17i5.4013

Keywords:

economics of information, privacy, markets

Abstract

Since there is, in principle, no reason why third parties should not pay individuals for the use of their data, we introduce a realistic market that would allow these payments to be made while taking into account the privacy attitude of the participants. And since it is usually important to use unbiased samples to obtain credible statistical results, we examine the properties that such a market should have and suggest a mechanism that compensates those individuals that participate according to their risk attitudes. Equally important, we show that this mechanism also benefits buyers, as they pay less for the data than they would if they compensated all individuals with the same maximum fee that the most concerned ones expect.

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Published

2012-05-04

How to Cite

Aperjis, C., & Huberman, B. A. (2012). A market for unbiased private data: Paying individuals according to their privacy attitudes. First Monday, 17(5). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v17i5.4013

Issue

Section

Articles