Shifts in Privacy Concerns

This paper explores how digitization and the associated use of customer data have affected the evolution of consumer privacy concerns. We measure privacy concerns by reluctance to disclose income in an online marketing research survey. Using over three million responses over eight years, our data show: (1) Refusals to reveal information have risen over time, (2) Older people are less likely to reveal information, and (3) The difference between older and younger people has increased over time. Further analysis suggests that the trends over time are partly due to broadening perceptions of the contexts in which privacy is relevant. ∗Avi Goldfarb is Associate Professor of Marketing, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, 105 St George St., Toronto, ON. Tel. 416-946-8604. Email: [email protected]. Catherine Tucker is Associate Professor of Marketing, MIT Sloan School of Management, 100 Main St, Cambridge, MA. Tel. 617-252-1499. Email: [email protected]. We thank seminar participants at Queen’s University and the 2012 AEA meetings for helpful comments. This research was supported by an NBER Economics of Digitization and Copyright Initiative Research Grant and by SSHRC grant 486971. 1