DOCTORAL DISSERTATION Title: Essays on Economics of Internet Personalization

1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people helped me in this academic endeavor and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of them, both individually and collectively. Firstly, I would like to thank my dissertation committee chair Prof Tridas Mukhopadhyay for providing valuable guidance and inspiration during my research, and for being readily available to me. I am also very grateful to my committee members Prof Rahul Telang, Prof Pei-Yu Chen and Prof Peter Boatwright for their constant support and encouragement. They always took the time to read multiple drafts of my dissertation essays and provided useful feedback in a timely manner. Also, special thanks to Prof Mukhopadhyay and Prof Chris Forman for providing generous funding which enabled me to attend numerous academic conferences and gain a broader perspective on research in the Information Systems area. I particularly thank Prof Fallaw Sowell and Prof Sandra Slaughter for their constant advice and encouragement. Their generous teaching assistantships helped me a lot, especially during my initial years at Tepper. I would also like to express my gratitude to other faculty members at Carnegie Mellon especially Srinivasan for their encouraging ideas and comments. Thanks are also due to Prof Maria Ferreyra who gave me the opportunity to work as her teaching assistant for three semesters and from whom I learnt a lot about teaching and class management. I would also like to thank our coordinators Jackie Cavendish (retired) and Lawrence Rapp for providing logistical support and for always trying to make life easier for PhD students. Also, thanks to my colleagues and friends at Tepper for helping make the Tepper experience such a memorable one. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support throughout the research process, especially my wife Atrayee for her patience and for being a wonderful companion. Abstract This dissertation consists of three essays related to the economics of personalization of information goods such as web content, mobile services and online advertising. Today's online consumers are simply overwhelmed by the amount of information they have to deal with-the majority of which is often irrelevant to their needs and interests. This unfiltered flood of information results in an unpleasant online experience for consumers-and one that fails to generate the maximum possible product purchases, content or ad clicks, and return visits. Improving the online experience requires changing the way websites approach online content. To achieve this, firms …