What do they know about me? Contents and Concerns of Online Behavioral Profiles

Data aggregators collect large amount of information about individual users and create detailed online behavioral profiles of individuals. Behavioral profiles benefit users by improving products and services. However, they have also raised concerns regarding user privacy, transparency of collection practices and accuracy of data in the profiles. To improve transparency, some companies are allowing users to access their behavioral profiles. In this work, we investigated behavioral profiles of users by utilizing these access mechanisms. Using in-person interviews (n=8), we analyzed the data shown in the profiles, elicited user concerns, and estimated accuracy of profiles. We confirmed our interview findings via an online survey (n=100). To assess the claim of improving transparency, we compared data shown in profiles with the data that companies have about users. More than 70% of the participants expressed concerns about collection of sensitive data such as credit and health information, level of detail and how their data may be used. We found a large gap between the data shown in profiles and the data possessed by companies. A large number of profiles were inaccurate with as much as 80% inaccuracy. We discuss implications for public policy management.Comment: in Ashwini Rao, Florian Schaub, and Norman Sadeh What do they know about me? Contents and Concerns of Online Behavioral Profiles (2014) ASE BigData/SocialInformatics/PASSAT/BioMedCom Conferenc

Smart and Secure? Millennials on Mobile Devices

Millennials, members of the Generation Y are constantly connected to their social circles online, they are the founders of the social media movement. These young consumers count as the largest segment of smartphone owners in most regions of the world. In fact, smartphones have become one of the most important possessions of this highly technology savvy generation. However, the advanced and widespread use of mobile devices often does not meet with the required security consciousness. People who have grown up with internet, are more likely to share personal and sensitive corporate information online by using the same device for both work and private applications, accessing free Wi-Fi networks or borrowing other devices without the appropriate protection. This work examines the crucial smartphone security risks that users face with the new technology. It aims to investigate how their practices and behaviours can pose security risks on their smartphones usage. Security practices and awareness can be improved by increasing users’ knowledge. To accomplish this, education on technology is needed

The Effect of Developer-Specified Explanations for Permission Requests on Smartphone User Behavior

In Apple’s iOS 6, when an app requires access to a protected resource (e.g., location or photos), the user is prompted with a permission request that she can allow or deny. These permission request dialogs include space for developers to optionally include strings of text to explain to the user why access to the resource is needed. We examine how app developers are using this mechanism and the effect that it has on user behavior. Through an online survey of 772 smartphone users, we show that permission requests that include explanations are significantly more likely to be approved. At the same time, our analysis of 4,400 iOS apps shows that the adoption rate of this feature by developers is relatively small: around 19 % of permission requests include developer-specified explanations. Finally, we surveyed 30 iOS developers to better understand why they do or do not use this feature

Location privacy and public metadata in social media platforms: attitudes, behaviors and opinions

The highavailability of geolocation technologies is changing the social media mobile scenario and is exposing users to privacy risks. Different studies have focused on location privacy in the mobile scenario, but the results are conflicting: some say that users are concerned about location privacy, others say they are not. In this paper, we initially investigate attitudes and behaviors of people toward a location-aware scenario; then, we show users the amount of personal and sensitive data that can be extracted from contents publicly available in social platforms, and finally we ask for their opinions about a location-aware scenario. Results show that people who were not initially concerned about privacy are the most worried about the location-aware scenario; conversely, people who were initially concerned are less worried about the location-aware scenario and find the scenario interesting. A deeper analysis of the obtained results allows us to draw guidelines that might be helpful to build an effective location-aware scenario

Challenges of keyword-based location disclosure

A practical solution to location privacy should be incremen-tally deployable. We claim it should hence reconcile the eco-nomic value of location to aggregators, usually ignored by prior works, with a user’s control over her information. Loca-tion information indeed is being collected and used by many mobile services to improve revenues, and this gives rise to a heated debate: Privacy advocates ask for stricter regula-tion on information collection, while companies argue that it would jeopardize the thriving economy of the mobile web. We describe a system that gives users control over their information and does not degrade the data given to aggre-gators. Recognizing that the first challenge is to express lo-cations in a way that is meaningful for advertisers and users, we propose a keyword based design. Keywords characterize locations, let the users inform the system about their sen-sitivity to disclosure, and build information directly usable by an advertiser’s targeting campaign. Our work makes two main contributions: we design a market of location infor-mation based on keywords and we analyze its robustness to attacks using data from ad-networks, geo-located services, and cell networks. Categories and Subject Descriptors Security and Privacy [Human and societal aspects of security and privacy]: Usability in security and privac

Location-based Marketing: the academic framework

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.Over the last several years one could observe revolution in location-based technologies and geospatial information. Location awareness of mobile devices resulted in development of Location-Based Services (LBS) that are realization of that revolution in the most personal and contextual way. The ability to reach consumers in the highly targeted manner based on spatio-temporal criteria, attracted marketers from the early beginning of LBS creating field called Location-Based Marketing. Today decreasing prices of smartphones and wireless internet, as well as integration of location-aware mobile solutions and social media is leading to new possibilities and opportunities. The academic and professional interests of the author made him noticed that although the industry has challenged a significant development, there is lack of publications that would put an academic framework on that progress. The research has fulfilled this gap by extensive investigation of the current state of the art of Location-Based Marketing and its foundations - Location Based Services. The dissertation provides academic framework by comprehensive analysis of the Location-Based Marketing from LBS and marketing perspective. Further the thesis is addressing the issue of significant discrepancy between theoretical concepts of measurable Location-Based Social Media data and the actual data than can be legally accessed and used for marketing analysis purposes by investigation a case study of Location-Based Social Network - Foursqaure and Location-Based Analytics platform VenueLabs

“We Need a Big Revolution in Email Advertising”: Users’ Perception of Persuasion in Permission-based Advertising Emails

Persuasive tactics intend to encourage users to open advertising emails. However, these tactics can overwhelm users, which makes them frustrated and leads to lower open rates. This paper intends to understand which persuasive tactics are used and how they are perceived by users. We first developed a categorization of inbox-level persuasive tactics in permission-based advertising emails. We then asked participants to interact with an email inbox prototype, combined with interviews (N=32), to investigate their opinions towards advertising emails and underlying persuasive tactics. Our qualitative findings reveal poor user experience with advertising emails, which was related to feeling surveilled by companies, forced subscriptions, high prior knowledge about persuasive tactics, and a desire for more agency. We also found that using certain persuasive tactics on the inbox level is perceived as ethically inappropriate. Based on these insights, we provide design recommendations to improve advertising communication and make such emails more valuable to users